Crossroads Of Destiny
by edelweiss123
Summary: What if Zuko had made a different choice under Ba Sing Se?  Season 3 AU. Zutara/Taang/Sokki.
1. The Choice

Maybe it had been when he bound her to a tree, helpless, but she stood proud and defiant against him anyway.

Maybe it had been any number of times he had seen her fighting in defense of her allies, even when they both knew she was outclassed.

Maybe it had been when he realized that maybe she wasn't so outclassed after all, and had only won the fight in the oasis by a rare streak of luck and the light of the sun.

Maybe it was when, the very next time he saw her, despite everything, she offered to heal his uncle.

But later, he would reflect, it hadn't been until she'd offered to heal _him_ and placed two, soft, warm fingers on his ruined red face that he had really begun to _notice _her.

When Azula had thrown him into this underground jail cell, the last person he had expected (or wanted) to be stuck with was the girl. The first half an hour or so had been uncomfortable and tense—long silences interspersed with harsh words and wounded feelings. But then, this girl, this…

_Katara_, that was her name, he remembered. Though his specific knowledge of her was not vast, it had accumulated and morphed in little bits and pieces through every encounter:

She was a Water Tribe peasant.

She was an accomplice to the Avatar.

She was an annoyingly proud and defiant girl.

She was an unexpectedly skilled bender.

And more recently, he had also discovered this:

She was absurdly compassionate.

She had lost nearly as much as he had because of his nation.

And… she was actually rather pretty, in an exotic sort of way.

That last piece of information didn't help with much of anything, but he couldn't deny it under the cold emerald glow of their mutual crystal prison.

She was even attractive when his eyes had slid shut, breath caught in his chest from the feather-light contact on his skin. Her voice, rich and melodic, murmuring soothing promises to heal, to fix, trickled past his ear like the element she controlled so well.

But in his mind, he heard an additional promise whispered in her words.

_Redemption, redemption, redemption…_

His scar. It was his mark of shame, of disgrace, he had told her. 'The Mark of the Banished Prince.' And she had offered to remove it, to lift it from his face forever.

He held no delusions to the extent of her offer, though. Removing his scar wouldn't make him any less of a fugitive or traitor. It wouldn't undo his disgrace. It wouldn't return his father's approval and love, if he had even had it in the first place. It wouldn't give 'Prince Zuko' his life back.

But maybe that was okay. His life as a prince hadn't been very pleasant, anyway.

But 'Lee'… being Lee had been nice…

_Never forget who you are…_

His mother's words, so comforting in the past, now tore at him. Could he really forsake everything he was, just like that? Would removing his scar change the person underneath?

No.

But hadn't the person underneath already changed anyway? He certainly didn't feel the same as the Prince he knew and hated…

Maybe he felt more like… the Prince he had forgotten about. The boy he had been when his mother had actually given him those fervent words of guidance, before… everything happened. Maybe _that _was the 'who' he was supposed to be true to, not the banished Prince questing for his honor.

But then, was he really that person again? Was he really still himself? What did all of those words even mean? What was he, the Prince, 'Zuko', made up of? _Who _was he supposed to be?

Confused, frustrated, his thoughts swarmed and chased each other in circles around his mind, refusing to settle and give him any definitive answers. Abruptly, Katara's hand withdrew from his face and he opened his eyes again. She continued speaking—had it really only been seconds that his eyes were shut?—and though his mind was like a swarm of vulture-wasps, he fixed himself upon every word she spoke.

She had reached down into her shirt and, reverently, withdrew a small blue and white vial capped with a cork decorated with a crescent moon.

"This is water from the Spirit Oasis," she informed him, and his mind instantly traveled back to that unlikely place, where soft green grass had somehow grown in the middle of the frozen tundra, and two great spirits dwelt in tiny, mortal forms. Where the girl before him had frozen him to a wall, where he had just barely eked out a victory against her, where he had finally snagged the Avatar's unconscious body and then had nowhere to go.

Where he had woken up in the Sky Bison's saddle, hours later, knowing that the Avatar must have saved him—again—and at the time, had only thought of how foolish it was for the boy to make the same mistake twice.

With a muted 'pop', Katara uncorked the vial and coated her hand in a thin film of water. It glowed blue.

"It has special healing properties," she told him, staring calmly at her hand, then his face. She reached towards it, and his breath caught again. "I can—"

But before he could decide anything, before she had time to heal him, before she even had time to finish her explanation, their conversation was cut short and the moment was ended.

"KATARA!" The water instantly flew back into its container and Katara jumped back guiltily from him at the sound of her name being yelled. Zuko turned to see _the Avatar and his Uncle,_ of all people, come walking through a gaping hole in the wall that hadn't been there a second ago.

At the moment, the waterbender and the monk had eyes only for each other as they rushed to meet each other in a reunited embrace. Zuko, however, was busy voicing his surprise.

"Uncle?" The man in question merely gave one of his trademark mellow grins and strode regally over to him.

"Ah, Prince Zuko. I am happy to see you are well. I—"

"Wait! Uncle, what—"

"—is HE doing here! ?" Two voices yelled in tandem. Zuko turned to glare at the source of the other voice, and the Avatar met him with equal anger.

"What am _I _doing here?" Zuko asked incredulously.

"Yeah, what are _you _doing here with _her_?" Suddenly his eyes went wide and he snapped around to his companion. "Katara, what are _you _doing here with _him_?" Zuko's shout drowned out Katara's angry "_What?"_

"_WE _were both thrown into this _PRISON CELL_, you halfwit! Do you think I _chose _to be trapped in a cave like this? How can you even blame—"

"_Children,_" Iroh's calm voice, laced with authority, cut across the room and resonated deeply in the cave. Zuko felt a pang of embarrassment and shame at the term, though his Uncle didn't always need to address him as such to make him feel like a child. "_Please,_ don't argue. We do not have the time for such petty things right now. We need to focus on first, getting out of here, and then finding a way to stop Azula from taking over Ba Sing Se. And the best chance we have at doing that is if we all work _together_."

_Us _work with _them?_ Zuko almost voiced the thought, but in a rare moment of restraint, decided against it. Hadn't he been ready just seconds before to accept aid from Katara?

Across the room, the Avatar sighed and nodded. "You're right—I don't think we have any other choice." His face was grim, but accepting. Zuko scowled. Working with the girl was one thing, but the Avatar… He finally grunted his approval in the direction of his uncle, who smiled.

"Excellent. Now then, if our earthbending friend would be so kind as to lead the way out of here…?" Iroh trailed off in a half-question. The Avatar nodded and turned, leading them to the opposite side of the cave. Katara threw one, brief look over her shoulder at Zuko, then followed right behind the monk. Zuko sighed and kept pace beside his uncle.

It felt so… _wrong, _somehow, to be working _together _with the Avatar instead of chasing him. He didn't like this. Not at all. If everything he had done up to this point hadn't made him a traitor against his country, _this _certainly would. But what other choice did he have?

~o0o~

As it turned out, he _did _have another choice, but it hadn't been presented to him until he was already caught up in the heat of battle—not exactly the best time to make a decision of any great magnitude, but he managed to boil it down into simple terms in his head:

The Avatar and his Uncle…

…or Azula and his country.

He dodged a flying fist of rock and sent a volley of flame in return. Jumping in the air to avoid an erupting pillar of stone, he turned halfway in the air and sent a flaming kick towards a Dai Li's head. He landed a little unevenly, but managed to right himself just in time to duck another stone glove sent his way. Growling, he sent out three quick, successive bursts of fire at the bender sending the gloves at him and managed to clip him on the arm. The man stopped for just a second to pat out the flames with an earth-coated fist, but a second was all Zuko needed. Another burst of fire, and the man was down.

Zuko took the momentary reprieve in battle to look around him. Azula and the Avatar were fighting one-on-one. Or rather, Azula was shooting huge blue jets of fire every half-second and the Avatar was dodging them. To most people it would have appeared as though the monk was losing, and badly, but Zuko knew first hand just how _good _the little baldy was at evasive maneuvering.

Katara was fighting by the pools, surrounded by at least ten Dai Li. And she appeared to be holding her own, if not winning. And Uncle was doing the same, fighting at least twice that many.

Zuko just barely avoided the Dai Li agent that exploded out of the earth in front of him, and threw a reactionary punch at the man's gut. And, unfortunately for the earthbender, that fist was also coated in fire. Dropping the man and darting away to a more defensible position, Zuko readied himself for another attack.

He knew he should wipe his mind of all but the fight before him. He knew he shouldn't be thinking of stupid things like destiny and purpose when his life was on the line. But his racing thoughts just would not let him go.

It almost felt as if everything he had lived through—survived, really—in the past three years had been leading up to this moment. He knew, just _knew_, that the outcome of this battle would determine his fate. He even knew what two fates he had to choose from.

The problem was, he had _no idea _which one to take.

The Avatar. Uncle. Katara. Redemption. Treachery to his country, his father, and his birthright.

Azula. Father. Redemption. His country. His honor. Treachery to his Uncle.

Either way, he would end up a traitor to someone. Either way, he would turn his back on his blood. Either way, he would lose some part of himself that he valued.

Each choice felt wrong.

Each choice felt right.

He didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at that moment.

He could really never win, could he?

But, if that was true, then could he lose, either?

_Yes, _his mother's voice whispered in his head. He could lose himself. _Remember who you are._ Not the Prince of the Fire Nation, not the banished son, not 'Zuko' or 'Lee', but _him_: what choice would _he _make? What choice was right?

"Zuko!" Azula shouted. The Dai Li had ganged up on the Avatar, and his sister had shifted over to fight the waterbender, who had driven off or incapacitated all of her other opponents.

"With your help, we can defeat them! You can still redeem yourself in the eyes of our father!" And she lunged for Katara with two blue daggers of fire.

_Azula always lies…_

_Remember who you are…_

It was the perfect opening: both girls were faced away from him, Azula attacking, Katara defending.

And he didn't have some great, glowing epiphany, some moment of enlightenment—he just felt for the very core of his being, and grabbed onto it. He just remembered who he was.

And he chose.

He sent a ferocious blast of flame towards the girl, and she dodged neatly, a feminine squawk of surprised outrage flying from her lips, followed closely by a yelled accusation.

"_YOU!"_

There was no going back now.

~o0o~

A great peal of thunder crashed down around them. It sounded like screeching metal, as if two Fire Navy ships had somehow collided at great speed.

But they weren't on the ocean, or even by the shore. They were up in the air, soaring away from Ba Sing Se as fast as the giant bison could carry them. They were fleeing—both from the storm behind them and the conquered stronghold.

It seemed to Zuko that running was all he did, these days.

"Everyone in the saddle, _now!_" The water tribe boy, (Sokka, he thought,) commanded. "We need to get out to sea before this thing catches up with us." Zuko was already there, as were the Earth King and his odd pet. The little earthbender girl hopped up first, relinquishing her place at Sokka's side and crawling over to sit at his right, a few safe feet away from him. Then, carefully, Katara came next, still cradling the small unconscious monk in her arms. She sat down across from him, but did not look at him. It might have been the few drops of rain that had just started to fall, but he thought he saw her crying.

Sokka stayed seated on the bison's head, and urged the creature into doubletime. The stormy air around them was tense, and thick. Zuko's mind clouded over darkly.

He had made his choice. He had, without thought, aimed a blast of fire at his own sister. He had made it clear which side he would be fighting on—his uncle's side, the _Avatar's _side.

And then they had lost.

_Congratulations, Zuko, _Azula's snide voice mocked him in his head. _You threw away your very last chance for redemption. I guess the life of a peasant and a traitor were just too appealing for you. But, it's not as if I expected anything less from a failure._

Had this really been right? What had he done, really, in choosing this side? How _could _this be right when he felt so angry, so depressed, so _ashamed_ at losing?

_Don't worry, Zuzu. You won't have to live with your shame for long—I will hunt you down and end it for you._

_Yes, _he thought bitterly. _I'm sure we'll be seeing her again very soon._

What had he done? Was he crazy or something? He had just _thrown away _everything he had ever strived for! And for what? So he could be hunted down alongside the Avatar instead of hunting for him? Because his life had just been too good to stay that way for long? Because fate decided that he would always be on the losing side?

"This is insane…" he muttered to himself, but the earth girl must have had really good ears, because she replied,

"Yeah, I know what you mean. But once you're with us for awhile, you'll get used to it." Zuko blinked, then shook his head.

"Wait, what? What are you talking about?" He asked heatedly. The girl just gave a lazy shrug.

"Eh, the constant flying, being chased down by crazy Fire Nation Royalty, fighting against terrible odds—now that you're on our side, you'll get your fill of all of that and more." She narrowed her eyes, and, still facing somewhat away from him, jabbed her finger in his face. "Why, what were _you _talking about?" He scowled and carefully pushed her arm down from his face.

"Yes, I meant this. All of _this_" and he waved his arms around, though even he wasn't quite sure what all he was referring to, "is insane! What was I thinking? Why did I… we _lost, _and now we're _running away_, and Uncle…" he trailed off quietly.

It had all happened so fast. One minute, he and his Uncle had been waiting to serve tea to the Earth King, and the next, he was fighting his sister and _way too many _earthbenders, and then the Avatar had fallen—_just like that_, Azula could beat him, even in the Avatar State—and then they had been backed into a corner and Uncle had told them to _Run! I'll hold them off while you escape! _And they had left him. He had left his Uncle in the clawed hands of his sister—to be captured or worse—while he ran off like a coward. He had abandoned him. _Again._ Only this time, he knew there was a very good chance he would never see him again.

"Hey," the earthbender's voice, softer than before, cut into his thoughts. "Don't worry about your Uncle. He's tough. He'll be alright." She wore a mysterious little smile, but her eyes were still blank. And he realized, with a start, that she was blind.

"You're blind," he blurted out before his mind could catch up with his actions. Annoyance flitted across her features before changing to surprise.

"Wait, what? I'm not—" she waved her arm in front of her face and her mouth dropped open in mock horror. "OH MY GOSH, I CAN'T SEE! SOMEBODY HELP, I'M _BLIND!_" Zuko snorted and crossed his arms across his chest, and the blind girl dropped back down into her seat and gave him a brittle smile.

"Never gets old," she told him.

"Ah, yeah…" What did he say to that? How could she be so cavalier about their situation? Had she just been trying to lighten the mood? Well, if she had, it hadn't really worked. Looking around the saddle, the Earth King still looked extremely uncomfortable, the bear was asleep, Sokka hadn't even turned around during their whole exchange, and Katara was just casting wary glances at the two of them in between staring helplessly at the boy still cradled in her lap.

Zuko's philosophy was, 'if you can't think of something to say, don't say anything at all'. So he didn't, and after a long moment of silence the girl just shrugged and turned her blank gaze away from him to stare at, literally, nothing.

It was quiet then for awhile after that, despite the storm raging just behind them. Everyone appeared to have lost themselves in their own thoughts, and Zuko was no different. He just kept asking himself, _what now_? but could never think of any definitive answer. He almost felt like he _shouldn't_, yet, not until his mind was calm and he could make a clear decision. Hadn't his Uncle just been telling him that he needed to think things through?

His Uncle…

He couldn't help but wonder if the earthbender's reassurances were true. Would his Uncle really be okay? _No, _he found himself immediately thinking. _Azula has him now…_But, then again, it was just so hard to imagine the man actually _losing_, to anyone. Even if he _was _captured, his Uncle had already proven he was more than capable of handling himself.

But, then again, again, this was no troop of earthbending soldiers—this was Azula, _his sister_, the prodigy.

And, this time, Zuko wouldn't be there to stop Iroh's hands from being crushed.

"Toph," Katara's voice was choked and rough from crying, and Zuko was startled out of his thoughts by the sudden sound. The earthbender—Toph, he now knew—perked up and turned her head in the waterbender's general direction. Katara cleared her throat and started again. "Toph, it's starting to rain harder. I need you to take Aang and wrap him up in some blankets—keep him warm." Her eyes flickered over to Zuko nervously for just a second, so quick that he almost thought he had imagined it—but then her focus was back on Toph. The blind girl shifted forward on her hands and knees towards Katara, who carefully transferred the Avatar off her lap and into Toph's grasping hands. "I'm going to try and bend the rain away from us, okay? We can't have anybody getting sick like last time." Toph cocooned the sleeping monk in a swath of blankets, then wrapped her arms around him.

"Don't worry, Sweetness. I'll keep Twinkletoes warm." Sweetness? _Twinkletoes_? He felt a smile working its way onto his face despite himself.

_Oh, everyone has nicknames, Zuzu. It's just part of being a family._ His smile changed to a scowl. If he couldn't even get away from his sister in his own head, how was he supposed to avoid her in the real world? (He also briefly wondered if this meant he really _was _crazy, but decided that _that _particular avenue of thought might not be very healthy at the moment.)

Meanwhile, Katara had positioned herself near the center of the saddle. She stood up on her knees as tall as she could go, and began slowly weaving her hands through the air. The rain suddenly stopped falling on him, hitting the air a foot above his head and then just sliding off around them, over the side of the saddle.

It looked like tedious work—she just kept moving her hands high above her head in slow, twisting motions, repeating the same movements over and over. Sweat beaded at her brow, and she grunted a little as she shifted her legs to get more comfortable. The very tiniest hint of pink stuck out of her mouth, her tongue poking out between her teeth as she concentrated. He watched, mesmerized, as her hands seemed to push at the sky, to bat away each individual raindrop with her slender brown hands.

And when her eyes darted down to check on all of the occupants of the saddle and landed on him, he realized—too late!—that he had been caught staring.

"Ah!"

"Ack! Katara!"

"Hey! What's the big idea?"

Shouts of indignant surprise came from all over the saddle as the rain suddenly fell on them again, now harder than ever. Zuko broke his gaze away from the waterbender—but not before she could send a nasty glare his way—and he tried to make the sudden guilty movement look like he was flinching from the rain. He looked pointedly away from her, and the rain lifted from them seconds later.

"Oops! Sorry guys. Guess I got a little _distracted_." Her words were dry and sharp, and Zuko told himself that his now-burning ears were just from the sudden cold of the rain, and nothing more.

But instead of making everyone more depressed and grumpy than they had been, the dump of cold water seemed to liven the dark mood that had settled over them.

Or, he supposed, it could have had more to do with the words Sokka shouted just a minute later.

"Look! There's the coast! I think I can see Dad's fleet!" Katara turned carefully, still bending the rain away, and squinted at the horizon.

"I don't know, Sokka," she said doubtfully. "I don't see anything. I think it's just the light reflecting off the water." Sokka rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air, then pointed with both arms towards some distant speck on the water.

"No, look! Right _there_, see? See that little bump waaaaay out there? It's him! It has to be!"

A few drops of rain began leaking through Katara's barrier as her concentration wavered. "Hmm… no, I still don't see…"

"Wait!" Toph piped up, and leaned forward to stare excitedly out at the ocean. "I think I see it!"

"See?" Sokka started triumphantly. "I'm not the only one who—oh." His face fell into a flat glare, which he directed at the now grinning earthbender. Zuko himself had to hold back a chuckle, and he saw Katara smile for the first time since the crystal cave.

Sokka muttered grumpily and turned back around to work the reigns. "You know, one of these days, I'm not going to fall for that." Toph just stretched out beside Aang again and smiled.

"Don't count on it, Snoozles."

Idly, Zuko wondered if he would get a nickname, too.

~o0o~

"See? I told you! I _told _you! Never doubt a warrior's sharp eye!" Sokka crowed as, twenty minutes later, the speck that none of them could see eventually grew closer and took on the shape of about twenty or so small Water Tribe vessels that were, Zuko noted with some worry, surrounding a Fire Navy ship.

Katara just rolled her eyes, and Zuko had a feeling that it would be a long time before Sokka let anyone forget about this.

"That's great," Toph drawled, "but it's your sharp _brain _that we've been worried about."

Sokka dropped the reigns and turned around with an indignant look plastered on his face.

"What's _that _supposed to mean? !" He screeched. Toph just feigned indifference—(surprisingly easy to do when you were blind)—and picked her teeth with her fingernail.

"Well, if you can't figure it out, then I guess we've got more to worry about than I thought." Before the heated—and in Zuko's opinion, amusing—argument could go any further, though, Katara intervened.

"Look, guys, we're almost there!" She smiled brightly, her face lighting up at the prospect of shelter, or perhaps seeing her father again.

Zuko, on the other hand suddenly felt very, very nervous. It wasn't as if he hadn't known where they were going, but he hadn't really thought about it, his mind too occupied with other things.

_Don't worry, my nephew,_ he imagined his Uncle laughing, _a lovely girl is just taking you to meet her father. Just be a gentleman and I'm sure everything will be fine._

Zuko groaned, which earned him an inquisitive look from the 'lovely girl' in question. Somehow, he didn't think any amount of politeness would make the Water Tribe warrior want to kill him less, even _if _Zuko wasn't interested in his daughter.

_Oh, so you're _not _interested in her? Could've fooled me._

He didn't know what frightened him more—the fact that those words rang true, or that he couldn't tell whether it was his or Azula's voice the thought had come in.

He rubbed his forehead in agitation. He didn't have time to be worried about stupid things like that right now—he had bigger problems at hand.

Like figuring out what he was going to say when a small army of angry Water Tribesman asked what _the crown Prince of the Fire Nation _was doing on _their _ship. Well, ex-prince, anyway. But he didn't think that they'd care much for semantics. Or anything else he had to say.

But still, he needed to come up with _something _to tell them. He needed to give them a good, solid explanation as to why he had switched sides, and why it would be in _everyone's _best interest _not _to throw him overboard, or stick his head on a pike.

He drew a blank. Growling, he thumped his head onto his knees. Why was he always so horrible with words? Hell, he didn't even have an answer for _himself _when he tried to figure out why he had done what he did!

_Breathe, Zuko._ He reminded himself. _Calm._

Okay. So, in a nutshell, he had been given the choice to fight with his sister against his uncle and the avatar, or vice versa. He chose his uncle, and then he lost. And then he had come with the Avatar's group because… well…

It was the right thing to do?

No, that was a stupid answer. And he wasn't even sure if it was true, if he was being honest with himself. He still wasn't sure how he felt about _any _of this, let alone if it was right or wrong.

Which wasn't good, because he knew that if he was anything less than convincing in his pleas, he wouldn't be allowed to remain with them.

Wait. Why did he want to stay with them again?

_Safety in numbers, the enemy of my enemy is my friend…_

Those were definitely some good reasons, but they weren't good enough to win over the Water Tribesmen. They weren't even really good enough for him—he had always preferred to do things _alone._

So why stay then? He couldn't really think of one, really good reason to _stay, _but maybe he could think of it from a different angle: if he _didn't _stay, what would he do?

Run? Run where? He was a wanted fugitive now, in every nation. And even if he did find somewhere to hide, what then? Would he hide out in some teashop for the rest of his life? He scowled.

No. No more teashops for him.

Then what did he really want to do? What was his first priority?

_Uncle. _His fists balled tightly. Yes, rescuing his uncle was _definitely_ at the top of his list. And having the help of the Avatar and his allies would certainly make that task a lot more feasible.

But after that? After his Uncle was safe?

He didn't know. He sighed. Well, he had done pretty well so far flying by the seat of his pants, all things considered. He decided he would stay with the Avatar at least until he rescued his Uncle, and wing it from there.

Okay, so that covered _his _reason for staying. So now, what would be _their _reason for letting him stay?

"Sokka…" Katara began nervously, and Zuko's train of thought derailed. The warrior in question just shot a grim look at her, then focused back out on the bay.

"Don't worry, Katara. It's… look, there's only one ship, and it's surrounded… and I don't see any fighting, so Dad must have captured it, or something."

"Wait, what?" Toph perked up, confused. Obviously, she could not see the Fire Navy ship they were approaching.

"It's captured," Zuko spoke up, and everyone turned to look at him. He had to swallow past the lump in his throat to continue. "The engine is shut off, which they wouldn't do if they were surrounded by enemy vessels. Not to mention, if they _were _fighting, we'd be able to see it from here." To punctuate his statement, he lit a small fire on the end of his finger and flared it.

Sokka gave a small frown, but his face loosened as he turned back around to work the reigns. Katara also looked relieved, although the expression didn't develop until after he'd snuffed his fire out. Toph developed an odd, calculating look on her face.

"So, wait, we're landing on a Fire Navy ship, right?" Katara looked towards Sokka, who gave a hesitant nod.

"Right. We should be landing in a few minutes," Katara reassured her, though she herself looked nervous again for some reason. Toph slowly began to grin.

"And those things are made of metal, right?" Zuko frowned. He couldn't see where she was going with this.

"Yes," he answered. With the arm that wasn't wrapped around the Avatar, she punched the air.

"AWESOME! I _hate _wooden boats! I can't see anything on them!" Zuko just blinked.

"But, you can't see anything, _ever,_" he told her. She scoffed and lifted one of her legs, exposing her bare, dirt-crusted foot.

"I'm an _earthbender_. I see, well, I _feel_ things through the earth with my feet." She dropped her leg and leaned back in the saddle. "But a wooden boat isn't made of earth—I can barely see when I'm on it at _all_."

"But, metal isn't earth either," he said, still confused.

"Sure it is," she shrugged, "it's just really refined." Zuko raised his only eyebrow.

"If metal is still earth, then why can't you bend it?" She smiled broadly.

"I _can_," she told him proudly. His eyebrow went up even further.

Suddenly, rain was falling on them again, but they were far enough away from the storm now that it was only a few drops. Katara had whipped around to face Toph, astonishment written all over her face.

"Wait, really? Since when?" Toph cracked her knuckles.

"Since yesterday." Katara leaned in, excited.

"So how did you do it? Have you been working on it, or did it just, come to you?" Toph's smug grin dimmed a little, and she chuckled nervously.

"Well, remember how I got that letter from my parents to go and meet them?"

"Yeah," Katara frowned.

"Well, apparently, they had decided I needed to be _dragged _back home. So when I walked through the door of the place I was supposed to meet them, a big, giant metal trap sprung up around me. They weren't even there—just the two blockheads they sent to capture me!" She finished angrily.

"Your parents put you in a cage?" Katara shouted, unbelieving.

"They sent bounty hunters after you?" Zuko questioned. _That _was something he could relate to, at least.

"Wait, so that was why you were way out there when Aang and I found you?" Sokka had turned around in the saddle, his eyes wide.

"Yes, yes, and yes," Toph huffed, waving her hand to dismiss their concerns. "But I busted out, and now I have a sweet new bending technique, so it's really not a big deal." Katara's face softened and she put a comforting hand on the blind girls' shoulder.

"Toph, I'm so sorry…" Toph squirmed under the contact, looking uncomfortable.

"Don't worry about it, Sweetness. Like I said, it's not a big deal." Katara frowned.

"But your parents—"

"—are stuffy, selfish, narrow-minded jerks that don't know how to take a hint. They can just keep wasting money sending people after me for all I care—I'll just fight 'em off. I'm _never _going back." Toph crossed her arms and lowered her head, signaling that there would be no budging her on this. Katara sighed and dropped her hand, then, looking out over the ocean to gauge how close they were to the ship, drew the Avatar into her lap.

And they _were _close. A minute later, the Sky Bison had come upon the ship, and the Water Tribe warriors were waving them down. As soon as they landed, everyone but Zuko jumped—or tumbled, in the bear's case—off the saddle and a flurry of greetings and questions and embraces ensued. The firebender just tried to sink into the saddle, praying that no one had seen him yet.

But, as always, luck frowned upon him, and he heard a deep, male voice question:

"Who's that still up in the saddle?"

"What? Oh! Get down here, Zuko!" Of course Katara had shouted his name. His, very obviously, _Fire Nation _name. Loud enough for everyone on the ship to hear. He sighed.

_Well, here goes everything._

He threw a leg over the saddle and hopped down into a group of people. And it was only then, surrounded by dozens of suddenly very angry men with spears and clubs, that he realized he still hadn't come up with a reason they shouldn't gut him.

~o0o~

**A/N – **I think I'll play around in the ATLA universe for awhile, so I don't get burned out on Naruto.

I was going to break this up into a prologue type-thing and the first chapter, but… it wasn't really long enough to. Anyway, I've always loved Avatar, but just recently got into its fanfiction. And boy are there some great pairings… (This story will almost certainly be Zutara/Taang/Sokki)

And before anyone asks, yes, I know that I didn't write the cavern scene or the fight scene as it happened in canon, but that was _intentional_. It would be completely pointless to transcribe the events of the show word for word and blow by blow with just some added fluff. But don't worry, I won't be trashing _all _of the lines and events from season three—some of the jokes are just too witty to get rid of—but I will try to avoid writing anything that you couldn't get from just watching the show.

Leave me love!


	2. Apologies

Attention, Zuko decided, was vastly overrated. Because at the moment, he would have loved nothing more than to have all eyes off him, instead of trying bore holes through him… which, he supposed, was at least a step up from the Water Tribesmen using their _spears_ to bore holes through him, but they were probably getting closer and closer to that point as he stood there gaping like a parrot-fish.

"Ummm…" _I can explain? _No, that sounded too guilty. _Let me just say something before you geld me…_ NO, no, definitely not. Didn't want to give them any ideas…

Sokka intervened. Throwing an arm around the man who was obviously the leader of the group, he waved his other hand between him and Zuko.

"Dad, meet the Angry Jerk—Angry Jerk, Dad," Sokka looked inordinately pleased with himself, and Zuko forced himself to remember that the boy was a potential ally now, and that it wouldn't really help his situation if he knocked him upside the head. Then, it clicked:

_Wait, DAD?_ Great. He had been chasing the _Chieftain's _children all across the world. Maybe if he jumped overboard now, he could still swim to shore…

"It's okay, Dad, Prince Zuko is on our side," Katara said a little angrily. _Prince?_ Zuko almost choked. _She couldn't have left that little tidbit out? _Zuko saw all of the men grip their weapons a little tighter and lean forward a bit. He whipped his eyes around to glare at the big-mouthed girl, but her own blue eyes were focused on her father, daring him to oppose her. Zuko was a little taken aback by the expression. She was defending him…?

"Katara," the man started, even and deep—the voice of a ruler, "I'm not sure why you think a Fire Nation Royal would be _on our side_, but I will not have him on my ship, with my men and my children." Zuko tried not to wince. He had expected as much, but the refusal of approval from the man still stung deeply, the familiar hurt burrowing into an already open wound.

Katara, still holding the unconscious Avatar in her arms, narrowed her eyes and took a step towards her father. "That's not for you to decide, Dad." The man's eyes widened in shock—he obviously expected to be obeyed. All of the other Water Tribe men seemed stunned by her attitude as well, even her own brother.

Zuko couldn't believe it either. Despite the fact that she had been the first one to extend the offer of working together, he hadn't thought she would accept his change of heart so easily or quickly. She was even willing to go against her own father to do so.

And something about that, about how she stood up to her father to do what she thought was right, tickled a memory in the back of his mind. But before he could think any more on it, the conversation resumed.

The Chief seemed to have recovered mostly from his shock, and frowned deeply at Katara.

"Katara, you may not like it, but it _is _my place to decide what's best for my peoples' safety, and for yours." At his last word, Katara's glare turned very, very cold. Zuko shivered. _That _was a look she had usually reserved for him, but for some reason, it affected him more deeply now than it used to, even though it wasn't directed at him.

"Not anymore, Dad. You can't decide what's best for me anymore—what's best for the _world._" She squeezed the boy in her arms tightly. "Aang needs a firebending teacher. So, unless you can think of another firebender who'd be willing to do the job, Zuko stays with us." Zuko deflated a little. So she was only taking his side because the Avatar needed him?

He sighed. It was still something, at least.

The chief seemed to be at a loss for words, as did most of the rest of the group. Tense silence hung in the air for the space of a minute, then one of the other Water Tribe men sighed and disengaged from his place in the huddle. He placed his burnt arm on the Chief's unoccupied shoulder, and turned to face them.

"You kids look tired. Why don't I go ahead and show you to your rooms? You can get some rest, and we can talk in the morning." The man glanced at his leader from the corner of his eyes, as if waiting for approval. The Chief caught his glance after a moment, and nodded dumbly, still obviously disbelieving of what had just happened.

The taller man seemed to relax a little, and dropped his arm from the Chiefs' shoulder. He waved their group forward.

"C'mon, kids, this way." The man began walking them towards the stairs that led to the rooms below deck, and Katara brushed past her father without so much as a glance. Sokka followed her, still looking nonplussed at her attitude, and the man watched his children go with a hopeless look on his face. The Prince looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. Toph sidled up to him, arms crossed and silent, and Zuko was faintly amused to see that the Earth King had also followed along in the group of 'kids'. Though, from what little he had seen, the term fit the deposed monarch quite nicely.

"What about Appa?" Toph spoke up for the first time since arriving.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of him," the man reassured her. He looked thoughtful. "We'll have to find some way to hide him though—can't have another Fire Navy ship spotting him on board. Capturing just this one was hard enough." He chuckled humorlessly, and an uneasy feeling settled into Zuko's gut. The ship was obviously devoid of Fire Nation citizens other than himself, and he severely doubted the ship's missing occupants were just hidden away in the brig.

"What about Bosco? Does he get a room?" The Earth King piped up, adjusting his tiny glasses. The Water Tribe warrior quirked a brow.

"Umm… the bear?" The King nodded. "Could he just… stay in yours?" The King frowned, then nodded again.

"I suppose that would be alright," he agreed, looking a little put upon. The warrior just turned back around slowly, looking a little weirded out.

They walked in silence for the next few minutes as the warrior navigated the narrow metal corridors, leading them to what Zuko knew were some of the slightly better rooms, usually reserved for low-ranking officers. Finally they arrived at a dead-end hallway with three doors on each side. The man stopped and turned to face them, spreading his arms wide.

"These six rooms are empty, so you each get one to yourself. The bell for breakfast is rung at the sixth hour, but if you kids are too tired to come up for it, we'll set some aside for later. Is there anything you need?"

Katara sighed and looked despondently at the boy in her arms. "I probably need to go ahead and have another healing session with Aang before I go to sleep. Could you bring me down a few skins of water?" The man nodded and winced, watching somberly as the tattered monk groaned in his sleep.

"Of course, Katara," he said softly. He cleared his throat. "Anything else?" They shook their heads, and the man sighed. "Alright, then. Get some rest. See you kids in the morning." He took a step to leave, but Sokka clapped a hand to his shoulder, stopping him.

"…thanks, Bato. For everything." The man just smiled and clapped Sokkas' shoulder in return, then left.

The somber, pensive mood Bato left them in was broken almost immediately.

"I call this room!" Toph shouted, dashing towards the closest door on the right-hand side.

"Wait! Why? Is it bigger? Hold on!" Sokka ran into the room after her, and came hurtling out a second later. He jumped back in with an angry shout, and their unintelligible squabbling echoed loudly throughout the corridor.

He saw Katara squint her eyes shut and rub her free palm to her forehead. "Every time…" he thought he heard her mutter, but then the Avatar started slipping from her grasp and her eyes shot open.

He didn't remember deciding to grab him, but suddenly the Avatar was in his hands, caught before he could hit the floor. Before Zuko even had time to realize what had happened, the monk was forcefully wrested from him, snatched up by a now-panicked Katara. Her nostrils flared.

"S-sorry, he just…" Zuko fumbled, searching for the right thing to say and failing epically, as always.

"Don't touch him," she ordered in a whisper, her expression fierce. He put his hands up, palms forward, as a show of peace.

"Alright, I won't, I won't," he assured her. "Are you sure you don't…I mean, do you need help?"

"No," she replied tersely. He blew out a gust of air.

"Okay then. Well, I guess I'll just… go to bed now." He backed a careful distance away from her, then walked past her, watching her warily from the corner of his eye as long as possible. "Goodnight. And, um, sorry." He walked slowly towards the room on the left, at the end of the hall.

He felt her eyes track him all the way down.

~o0o~

Zuko knew he hadn't really slept in nearly 30 hours. He knew that he was just recovering from an illness, and that he needed plenty of rest if he wanted to stay healthy. He knew that it would be very difficult to sleep when the sun rose in a few hours, so he needed to get his rest in now.

He knew all this—felt his exhaustion all the way to his bones. But sleep just wouldn't come.

Maybe it had something to do with the ship he was on. For years, that tiny scouting vessel had served as his home, and the cold groaning walls of his darkened room were uncomfortably familiar. It reminded him too much of the lifestyle he was trying to rid himself of, and the deep red of the Fire Nation wall hangings and decor reminded him of all that he would never have again.

Maybe it was because he still hadn't made peace with his decision in the caves—he just hadn't had enough time, and he felt he needed a little more perspective on the matter before that could happen. It was certainly troubling his mind, but he thought he could push it out of his thoughts just enough to get some rest.

However, those weren't the only things that were eating at him—and at least one of the worries currently on his mind could be remedied immediately.

_Katara._ He couldn't really blame her for mistrusting him. Seeing him with the Avatar in his hands must have triggered a knee-jerk reaction in her, after all the times he had tried to carry him off. He knew he hadn't wronged her—not today, anyway—but he couldn't shake the guilt and disappointment her attitude caused him.

He was tired of seeing people look at him like that—with fear and disgust and loathing. Maybe once, he would have appreciated being seen as fearsome, but now, he just felt miserable. Katara, the Avatar, Li, Jet, his father…he was so, so tired of people looking at him with nothing but hate in their eyes. 'Prince' Zuko would have told himself that it didn't matter—that he didn't care if people thought he was a disgrace, an abomination, that he would prove them all wrong…

Zuko was many things, but a good liar was never one of them. He could try and convince himself that, it was okay if people saw him as some sort of monster, because he _was_… His hand, almost involuntarily, reached for the scarred side of his face, but he caught the motion before it came to completion. If they saw him as a monster, because he _looked_ like a monster…

_The face of the enemy…_

But he didn't want to be a monster anymore—never had, really, but everything was just so much easier when he could pretend…

Two flashes of blue came to the front of his mind, and he replayed the memory over and over again in his head, savoring it. Of Katara, staring up at him—not with fear or hatred—but compassion, tenderness, and kindness. _That _was what was bothering him. He wanted—desperately—to see that look in her eyes again, when she looked at him. He craved those gentle, positive sentiments like a man in a desert craved shade. He wanted, so badly, for people—her—to look at him and accept who they saw, to look at him and see someone _worthwhile_.

He wanted her to trust him.

_But how can they trust _you_, when you can't even trust yourself?_

He growled and pulled his pillow over his face. Why did everything in his life have to be so hard! ? Why couldn't he just figure out what he wanted already and go for it?

He took a deep breath to center himself, and exhaled slowly, being careful to keep the temperature of his breath down. (Wouldn't do to burn his only pillow, after all.)

It couldn't hurt to at least apologize to her, right? Even if it was just to earn a little of her trust? It wasn't a bad thing to want her to hate him less, was it? It wasn't as if he had any active plans to betray that trust in the future…

Sighing, he tossed the pillow off of his head and gave into the impulse, stretching as he rose from his bed. He grabbed the under-tunic of his Earth Kingdom garb and slipped it on over his head. He didn't bother with the shoes. As quietly as was possible on a metal floor, he slipped out of his room and snuck down the corridor.

The lights were low in the metal hallway—only about half of the sconces had remained lit throughout the night. He carefully shot tiny darts of flame towards the extinguished ones Under the better visibility, he frowned as he looked at the five identical metal doors. It hadn't occurred to him until just then that he had no idea which room was Katara's.

He debated internally whether or not he should peek into each of the rooms until he found her, but decided it would be too risky and awkward if he accidentally woke up the wrong person. Yes, getting caught sneaking into another person's room in the dead of night was definitely counterproductive for his 'trust-winning' agenda. But, would it be any better if he just knocked on doors? Not only would that definitely wake the person, but with his luck, he wouldn't find her until door number five…

The grating sound of a door being pushed open rang out across the hallway, and Zuko snapped around towards the source, fists automatically up and ready.

Katara water-whipped him—hard—in the face.

He toppled backward and his head collided with the metal wall of the hallway. He slid down it with a groan.

"Zuko!" Katara squeaked, and through the haze his vision had become, he could vaguely see her expression of horror as her hands came up to cover her mouth. He stared up at her blearily, and her hands dropped to her sides, balled into fists. When she said his name again, her voice was angry.

"Zuko! What do you think you're doing! ? Were you about to _attack _me…?" she hissed.

"You…hit _me_," he slurred, trying to push himself into a sitting position without much success.

"Because you were in a fighting stance!" She somehow managed to yell at him without raising her voice above a whisper. Surprisingly, no one had come out of their room yet, even though the sound of his head hitting the wall must have been pretty loud. It _felt _pretty loud, at least.

"You just… sur…prised me." He tried to focus on her, but the way the room kept spinning made it extremely difficult.

"Well, you surprised me! What were you doing, just standing there?" She crossed her arms.

"Couldn't sleep," he stated. And it was true. But even in his daze, he knew it would not help his current situation if he told her that he had actually gotten up to talk to _her._

"So you decided to go lurk in the hallway and jump out at people?"

"No." He was finally sitting up now, and tenderly rubbed the new chicken-goose egg on the back of his head. His fingers came away tinted red.

"Then what—" she gasped, staring at his hand. "You're bleeding!" One minute, she was yelling at him, and the next, she was flitting all around him, helping him stand up and showering him with concern and apologies. Her total 180 in attitude made his head spin. Or maybe that was still the wound doing that. It was hard to tell.

She guided him into the middle-left room, the room next door to his. Her room? She picked the room next to his? Interesting.

She sat him down on the edge of her bed, instructing him to relax his shoulders. She crawled up onto the bed on her knees and moved behind him, settling almost uncomfortably close.

"This should only take a minute," she told him, and it was all he could do not to jump when her fingers brushed through his hair, lifting it out of the way to give her better access to the wound. He swallowed, and his tongue felt heavy. Other than the royal hairdressers and his mother, no one had ever touched his hair. Not like _this_.

It was a very personal action. Intimate. Like touching his scar had been.

_Where else can she touch…?_ He immediately drove the thought out, writing it off as a product of his addled brain.

He watched as a thin stream of water came to life from a bowl on the nightstand, and disappeared behind him. He heard a very faint humming sound, and then felt the unfamiliar sensation of the healing water. It was different from normal water, because it just sort of stayed in one place, instead of running down his neck and back. It was very cold, and yet, not unpleasant—it was soothing. It almost felt like his tongue did whenever he chewed on a piece of mint leaf. What was the word? Tingly. Her water tingled.

A shiver trailed down his spine.

He gripped the fabric of his pants and closed his eyes, taking deep, meditative breaths. He couldn't tell how much time passed like this—her silently healing him, while he was torn between wishing that she would hurry up and finish already, and hoping that she never would. But eventually, the water retreated from his head and her fingers worked themselves out of his hair. He opened his eyes and sighed.

"There, that should do it," she told him, then yawned. She shifted away from him and to his left to sit near the center of the large bed, and he turned to face her. She dismissed the now pinkish water back to its place on the nightstand with a casual flick of her wrist, then curled her knees up to her chest.

Now that his head was clear, he noticed that she was still in her full daytime outfit, minus the shoes. Her hair was still down from when it had come loose in the fight against Azula, only now it was even more disheveled than before. And two, dark circles had formed under her bright blue eyes.

"So," she started, and she looked nervous, or maybe even… _guilty_? "were you planning on going to sleep anytime soon?" Zuko's eyes widened slightly, and his palms suddenly felt sweaty.

_Umm…_

"…probably not." _Not _now_, anyway…_ "I was up because I couldn't sleep, remember?" He toed the cold metal floor with his dangling right leg. "Why?" He asked furtively.

She bit her lip. "Well, you kind of had a mild concussion. I healed it, but…" Zuko felt relieved and disappointed at the same time. "Just to be safe, you might not want to sleep for a few hours." Yes, that was definitely guilt on her face. "Sorry."

Zuko just shrugged. "It's fine." He almost reached his hand up to touch the now-healed knot on his head, but stopped, not wanting to dispel the lingering sensation of her hands there. "Umm…"

"Yeah…"

"So…"

"Mhm?"

"Uhh…" Zuko was pretty used to feeling like an idiot in social situations, but this took the awkward cake. What did two enemies-turned-allies say to each other when there was no immediate threat or problem to take care of? They both fidgeted uncomfortably in silence for a minute or two, with Katara staring at him warily, maybe still half-expecting him to suddenly jump up and start shooting fire at everyone again.

"Sorry," he finally blurted out, and her expression shifted to confused. "For earlier, I mean. When I—you know, the Avatar—"

"Aang," she corrected. "His name is _Aang_." He winced. Right. He knew that, didn't he?

"Right. Aang. Well, anyway, sorry about earlier—he was falling, and I just…"

Katara sighed. "It's alright. You were just… trying to help. I may have… overreacted a little." She looked down at her toes, wiggling them.

"Well, after the way I've acted over these past few months…" He cleared his throat, turning his head to look at her from the corner of his eye. "Sorry about that, by the way. You know, chasing you guys around the world and…" _Stupid stupid stupid! Shut up before you dig yourself an even deeper hole! _"…yeah," he finished lamely.

Her lip quivered for a minute, before turning into an amused grin. She snorted, looked at him, opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it, deciding against it. Zuko frowned.

"What?" She shook her head.

"Nothing, it's just… just the way you said it, you know?" He frowned even deeper. She cracked a dry grin. "You terrorized us on a regular basis for _months_, and then when you apologize for it, you sound more like you're saying sorry for… I don't know, being late to dinner or something." Zuko grimaced. She sighed.

"Listen, it's probably not going to be easy for _any _of us to get used to having you around, but…" Many different emotions swirled behind her eyes, as if she was conflicted about something. "But, I _do _believe in second chances, so, apology accepted." Zuko gaped. It couldn't be _that _easy, could it?

"You—"

"_But,_" she interrupted, "don't think that means you've totally made up for everything you put us through," she told him seriously, pointing her finger at his chest. He almost groaned. _Of course _it couldn't be that easy. Nothing _ever_ was. "I'm _still _mad at you for that time you tied me to a tree," she reminded him sourly.

He blushed slightly, remembering. He figured she would take that one a little more personally than the rest.

Zuko sighed deeply. He was here to earn her trust, so he might as well start by righting past wrongs. "Well, then," he began, "what can I do to make it up to you?" She blinked, surprised, her mouth open in shock. Zuko smirked, inexplicably pleased at catching her off guard. But after a moment, her mouth drew closed and a devious glint came into her eyes. His smile faltered, suddenly nervous.

"I don't know, you've just got _so much _to make up for," she said in mock consideration. "I mean, like, _months_ worth of debt. I don't even know how to _begin_ the list of things you need to repay us for…" Then her tone turned thoughtful, and she tapped her chin. "Though, I guess you helping us against your sister probably knocked at least a _few_ things off that list…"

"She had it coming," Zuko muttered darkly, glowering at the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katara tense, then shift a little closer to him. He looked up, and saw that her hand was half-raised towards him, her eyes concerned.

"Zuko," she hesitated, biting her lip, then dropped her hand, sighing. She stared at her hands, folded on her lap. "She's still your sister, you know," she told him, as if that would change the fact that he and Azula were now mortal enemies. In fact, the only way their relation affected their rivalry was to personalize and intensify it. They had _always_ been at odds with each other, only now she had a legitimate excuse to kill him.

"I understand if it was hard for you to attack her. Although," her lip curled up in distaste, "how you could stand being related to a monster like _that_ is beyond me."

_Then you haven't met my father,_ he thought automatically, then froze.

_Traitor, traitor, TRAITOR!_ His mind screamed at him. He had already acknowledged, of course, that he was a traitor to his father and his country—though the acceptance of this did nothing to lessen the sick feeling it gave him—but he hadn't betrayed his father because he had _wanted _to. He just had a choice between his uncle and his father, and he chose his uncle. But he still loved his father. He still wanted his approval, though that was nothing more than an impossible hope, now. And he certainly didn't _hate _his father…

Did he?

All of those dark, lonely moments out at sea during his banishment that he would be locked up in his room, brooding… Often, he would feel sudden anger towards his father—for his favoritism of Azula, for burning him, for banishing him—but he would always recoil from it, ashamed. It wasn't his _father's _fault that Azula was so much better than Zuko. It wasn't his _father's _fault that Zuko had acted out of line during that war meeting. It wasn't his _father's _fault that Zuko had acted so cowardly and brought shame upon himself during their Agni Kai. It wasn't his _father's _fault that he had to punish his son for his dishonorable behavior…

Zuko would remind himself of those facts, over and over, until his rage shifted, and he would be angry at the Avatar instead, for keeping him from reclaiming his honor and going home…

But, then, by that same logic, it hadn't been _Aang's _fault that Zuko couldn't go home without him, had it?

Anger at the Avatar, anger at his father, anger at _himself_… there was just _so much _of that one, burning emotion that he couldn't even begin to sort it all out…

"Sorry," Katara's voice cut into his thoughts, and he snapped back to the present. She was looking at him warily, and he realized that he had been staring at her pretty intensely for the past few minutes. He turned his gaze away from her and berated himself.

_Stupid! Now she probably thinks you're mad at _her!

"I… I shouldn't have said that, that was out of line. I mean, nobody is _completely _bad, right? Surely she has _some _redeeming qualities…?" Zuko frowned, and he had to mentally backtrack until he remembered what she was talking about.

"No, not really. You were right the first time," he monotoned, staring blankly at the door. She was silent, but he didn't feel like turning to look at her. He felt hollow, drained, his confusion suffocating his usual anger for once, instead of fueling it. "It kind of runs in the family," he added blandly a moment later. He felt her shifting around on the bed, then she yawned.

"Yeah, I guess it does," she snorted, then hummed. "Well, most of it, anyway," she added. He started. What would _she _know about his family? Unless… He jerked his head around to face her. She had leaned back against the wall, and hugged a pillow to her chest. Her eyes were only half-open.

"What do you mean?" He asked slowly, hopefully.

She shrugged lazily. "Your uncle seems like a decent guy," she told him, finishing with a yawn. His chest constricted. _Oh._ Everybody seemed to like his uncle, that made sense…

"And I don't think… well, you were never really _bad_, I guess, just misguided." His eyes widened, and a small, light feeling took up residence in his heart at her roundabout approval. His eyes widened even further as he realized the implications of what she had just said:

He had told her that monstrosity ran in the family, and she had said he wasn't _like_ his family…

She didn't think he was a monster.

It wasn't as if anyone here, other than the Water Tribe warriors, treated him with open disgust, but the revelation was still a big one. He hadn't known, hadn't imagined that Katara thought of him as a decent person. Other people from outside the Fire Nation had treated him as a decent person, too, until they found out who he was…

But she _knew _him, knew who he was and what he represented… But he didn't think about that when she offered to heal him in the caves, he had only seen the compassion offered by a fellow human being…

As she must have.

"Are you sure?" He asked her, and he hated himself for second-guessing her assessment of him, afraid she might change her mind. But he _had _to know for certain. "I'm cut from the same cloth as the rest of my family. How do you know I'm not just pretending to be good?" He bit his tongue. That… had been a really stupid thing to say.

_Way to go, idiot. If she wasn't suspicious of your motives _before_…_

She frowned. "I don't," she said. Then she looked him straight in the eye. "But I'm _pretty_ sure you're not faking it. And believe me, I know what to look for," she ended in a mutter.

His eyebrow rose at her last statement. Had she been betrayed before…?

She caught his look and sighed. "Don't ask," she said tiredly. "Long, stupid story." He complied, and stored the question away for another time.

Another long bout of silence ensued, only this time, the awkward edge was gone. She didn't seem to mind that he was still in her room—at least, she never said as much. Eventually, though, he noticed that her breathing had started to even out, and her eyes had drifted closed.

"Are you asleep?" he asked quietly. She jumped a little, and cracked an eye open.

"No, of course not," she said in a very unconvincing slur. She closed her eyes again and curled onto her side, facing away from him. He tried again a minute later.

"So… firebending teacher, huh?"

"Mhm," she mumbled without turning around. "Gotta…earn your keep." He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Should be pretty easy. I mean, he's the Avatar, right?"

He was utterly perplexed when she giggled sleepily.

"Oh, definitely. Aang is an _excellent_ student." She laughed again. "Have fun." Zuko just shook his head. She was _obviously_ loopy from lack of sleep.

"Right," he said slowly. "Well, it's late—er, early. I'll just… let you go to sleep now." He stood up from the bed, and Katara stretched her legs out straight.

"M'kay," she mumbled. Zuko moved to the door.

"Goodnight," he told her.

"'Night." He gripped the handle of the door, then paused, turning back around to look at her. He stared at the back of her head, and the long, mahogany waterfall of hair that fell from it. Her body rose and fell slowly, moved by her deep, even breathing.

"And Katara?" No response. She was asleep. He sighed and pushed the door open quietly.

"Thank you," he breathed into the empty hallway.

He returned quietly to his bed, and slept peacefully until well after the sun had risen.

~o0o~

**A/N **– Thanks for all the reviews so far, guys! Positive comments inspire me to write more, and honest criticism helps me write better, so keep it up!

So, I _will_ be writing from other people's POV, but, for some reason, I find it much easier to write from Zuko's. I guess I just 'get' his character more. At some point, I know I will _have _to write from Katara's POV (which I am very anxious about), but if anyone has any other characters they'd like to hear from, just let me know.

Also, I realized after I finished last chapter, that in the show, Appa was actually still saddle-less. :p Oh well. But, since Appa magically has a new saddle by the time Aang wakes up, I figure that we can just pretend Aang found a new saddle for Appa while he was at the Eastern Air Temple.

Leave me love!


	3. Sarcasm, Breakfast of Champions

Katara knew upon waking that, without a doubt, last night had been one of the most _surreal _experiences of her life.

And she hadn't even been dreaming.

Working her way slowly up the metal stairs that led to the deck, she shook her head, remembering.

After she had finished up her healing session with Aang—and her stomach turned immediately, just at the thought of the almost _cooked_ state his body had been in before she worked with him—she had been absolutely exhausted. It had taken her nearly two hours before she was comfortable enough with Aang's condition to stop her healing. So by the time she had finally left the monk's room, she was the last one up. Unfortunately, that meant that all but one of the rooms were taken. It had taken her a few tries—and a few pillows tossed at her head by Toph—before she found the last empty room.

Which just so happened to be next door to _his_ room.

It made her edgy, knowing that all that separated her from the firebending Prince was a thin sheet of metal. So, despite how tired she was, it had taken her quite some time before she finally fell asleep. And it wasn't for lack of trying—she really did, even tried meditating a little, but her mind had just been given too much fuel for worrying.

It seemed nearly impossible that everything that had just happened had only happened in one day. The morning had started out productively enough—sure, they were planning for war, but Long Feng had been put out of commission, and King Kuei had learned of the reality of the situation in the world. They still had a lot to do, and the Fire Nation still had to be defeated, but the forces of Ba Sing Se had now joined them in their cause, and they had a plan of action. Things were moving forward and looking up. For once, she imagined that their worries were finally over.

Oh, how she _hated_ being wrong.

The frenzy had started when she had first caught sight of Zuko working in that teashop, and hadn't ended until she finally laid Aang down to rest in his Fire Nation style bed—which were nowhere _near _as comfortable as the beds they had had back in Ba Sing Se, she noted. (As wretched as that city was, _that _part of the experience, she had enjoyed, at least.)

But the time in between those two events had been little more than a blur of stress and adrenaline and fear. Discovering that Azula had infiltrated the palace had been an even bigger shock than running into Zuko. Him being in the city was bad enough, but his sister, too? And, of course, then she had to be _locked in a cell _with him. And as intense as that experience had been, it had actually been one of the _least_ stressful events of her day. Because after that, Aang had shown up, and then she had fought and fought and fought, and she hadn't known if she could win, but it didn't even matter, because Aang had died, he _died_, and she had been _this close _to losing him for good—and then, somehow, Zuko had come along with them, and though she was happy that he had fought on their side, he was still just… so… so…

She didn't even know! He made her nervous, was all. It was like, whenever he was around, her mind set her body on high alert. She was constantly aware of his every movement, even when he had been sitting rather harmlessly in the saddle…

And then, and _then, _when they finally made it to safety, just when she thought she could relax, her _dad_, who _left them alone_ for _two years_, started barking out orders the second she saw him! And then Zuko, who had only two days ago been their second (well, third, counting Long Feng) worst enemy, grabbing for Aang like that…

Well, any one of those things would have gotten her worked up. All of them _together_ had frayed her nerves so badly she almost felt like she needed a healing session herself.

However, after only a few hours of sleep, her worried mind had overridden her physical needs, and she had woken up. She tried her hardest to fall back asleep for what must have been half an hour, but it had been impossible. Deciding her mind might be more at ease if she went and checked up on Aang just once more for the night, she got up, got her waterskin, opened the door…

And nearly had a heart attack when she saw Zuko standing there, about to fry her.

Nearly.

Instead, she ended up giving him a concussion. A mild one, but still…

After the initial shock had worn off, she had realized that Zuko's expression when she knocked him off his feet had also been one of surprise. So she believed his claim that he hadn't intentionally threatened her—he had just reacted in defense, much like she had. Katara didn't like hurting people—(smacking Sokka upside the head didn't count)—even her enemies. She tried to use only as much force as necessary, and, luckily, water was the perfect element for disabling someone without injuring them. So when she saw that she had actually drawn _blood_ on Zuko, naturally, she felt terrible.

She didn't think twice about healing him—after all, whether she completely trusted him or not, they still needed him around as Aang's firebending teacher if—when, _when_—he recovered. And, he was still a human being, even if he was a 'former' enemy. She wasn't so callous as to let him suffer when she could easily take care of the problem within minutes.

And that was when the weirdness started. Healing was meant to be a soothing experience—both for the patient and the healer. But from the moment Katara had touched him, Zuko's body had tensed up so tightly that Katara could actually _feel_ his discomfort, radiating from him along with his excessive body heat. She had continued to heal him without faltering, but his reaction to it was making her even more wary of the teen—someone she already considered a very dangerous patient.

His tenseness unsettled her in other ways, as well. It took her a minute to figure it out, but eventually she had realized that Zuko was acting as if _he _didn't trust _her_. Her hand was just above the base of his neck, was he afraid that…?

She had nearly gasped at the revelation, but had managed to hold her hands steady.

It was shocking, to say the least, to see their interaction in that light, but up until recently, _she _had been _his _enemy, too. But did he really think that she would _hurt _him?

She winced. Well, okay, so maybe she _had,_ she would never do it on _purpose_, not when his back was turned…

Still, though, she had been torn. On the one hand, it tickled her pride as a waterbender to be considered dangerous enough to tread carefully around, but on the other hand, she had felt hurt that Zuko didn't trust her. She liked to think of herself as a caring and empathetic person, and that kind of base rejection rubbed her the wrong way.

She almost got angry. _She _hadn't been the one hunting _him_ down—she was the one who offered to help him! In fact, she had offered to help him before, when his Uncle was struck down by Azula, but he just shot fire at her and yelled for her to '_LEAVE!_'

Then her guilt managed to temper her rage, and she had to admit that, even if he had rejected her offers of help before, at least he was accepting them now, however grudgingly…

After she finished healing him, he had visibly relaxed, and she had expected him to bolt for the door.

But he didn't.

No, instead, he had stayed, sitting on the edge of her bed, facing her.

_Talking_.

Like, in a normal conversation. It was awkward, and stilted, and they both may have been more than a little bit sleep-deprived, but it was _normal_. If not for the fact that he had kept calling Aang 'the Avatar', she could have been talking to any one of her friends.

Heck, she had even teased him! And he hadn't gotten even a little bit angry! Depressed, maybe, but it was a far cry from the reaction she would have expected from the usually-scowling Prince. She almost couldn't believe that the quiet, polite teen who ducked his head and averted his gaze from her was the same person who, just months before, had crashed his ship into her village, taken her Gran-gran hostage, and _demanded_ that they turn over the Avatar.

But there was still that same, angry red scar over his eye—eyes that still glowed and burned like fire, even if the intensity had dimmed. There was still that same fearsome grace about him—half regal, half predatory, and his skin was still impossibly pale. There was still that same, deep, rasping voice, that always made something inside her quiver, and had haunted her nightmares for many nights past…

He was undeniably still Zuko, and yet, he was _not_. He wasn't at all the same person she had come to hate and fear—it was like he was a complete stranger that just happened to have the Prince's name and face.

_And better hair_, she thought with a giggle.

She finally reached the top of the stairs, and the delicious smell of salty wind hit her full on in the face. She squinted, staring at the sky. The sun was just past its zenith. She blinked.

Wow. She had slept past noon. She was no early riser, but she almost never slept in _this _late. She really _must _have been tired…

So tired, she had fallen asleep with Zuko still in her room.

She bit her lip and blushed, remembering. She had _definitely _not intended for _that _to happen when she brought him into her room to heal him. She squirmed, the mere thought of Zuko watching her sleep made her feel like elbow-leeches were crawling all over her. Sure, he had been gone when she had woken up this morning—er, afternoon, but she had no idea of knowing how long he had _stayed _there.

And she was _definitely_ not going to ask him about it, especially with all these people around. Sokka would probably flip out and get all overprotective if he knew, and her dad…

Her thoughts immediately soured. _Dad._ She had almost forgotten. They were supposed to have a _talk_ this morning about the Zuko situation. She scowled. There wouldn't even _be _a situation if he hadn't gone all "tribe leader" on them and tried to boot Zuko off the ship…

Panic suddenly overtook her, and she gasped. It was way past morning now, so what if they had already discussed it without her? What if they had already made him leave? Or _worse_?

But no, Sokka wouldn't let them do that, would he? Sure, he hated the guy, but her brother was practical—he knew that Aang needed a firebending teacher, so he wouldn't just let dad throw Zuko overboard, right?

Right?

Somehow, the thought of Sokka acting in Zuko's defense didn't exactly fill her with confidence.

_Because that worked out _so _well when he defended Aang at trial…_

Oooh, if her dad went behind her back and got rid of Zuko without even _talking _to her about it… Her teeth ground together.

Feeling murderous, she nearly ripped off the hand that suddenly grabbed her shoulder.

"Hey, Katara! You're—"

"WHAT?" She spun around and yelled. Sokka scrambled backward, looking frightened.

"Err… you're finally up?" He squeaked, looking side to side for an escape route from her wrath.

"Sokka, where is—"

"Zuko!" Sokka turned away from her, hailing the teen as he walked onto the deck from the lower levels. "Hey, buddy, didn't you say you needed help with that… thing?" Zuko stopped and turned towards him, making an odd face that seemed to say, _'Who, me?'_

Katara was confused, too. Since when was Sokka friendly with Zuko? And then, her thoughts caught up with her:

_Zuko!_ Relief washed over her. She wasn't sure if there had been any discussion this morning, but regardless, they hadn't kicked him out yet. In fact, judging from the direction Zuko had come from, he had been in bed all morning anyway. Zuko stood in place nervously as Sokka ran over to him. Katara trailed behind her brother.

"Umm…" Zuko started, staring at Sokka, then looked over at her. He flinched when he saw her expression, and Katara realized she was still scowling. She flushed and tried to tone it down a little.

Suddenly Sokka sniggered, pointing towards the Princes' face. "Hey, Jerkbender, how'd ya get that bruise? Did you hit your head coming up the stairs?" Sokka laughed at his own 'joke' and Zuko frowned, fingering his face. Katara looked at his forehead and gasped, but resisted the urge to cover her mouth with her hand.

Zuko's eyes crossed in an attempt to look at the big, purple bruise that had blossomed just above the bridge of his nose. Katara groaned internally.

_Oops. Missed a spot_.

Of course, last night she had been so focused on healing the bleeding injury on the back of Zuko's head, that she hadn't even considered he might have a bruise where she had hit him with her water-whip. It must have developed overnight, after he left her room…

Zuko's eyes widened in sudden realization, and he looked towards her nervously. She grimaced.

_Sorry!_

Sokka raised an eyebrow. "What?" He asked, looking between them suspiciously. Zuko's head pulled back a little and he looked away from her, turning to Sokka.

"Err… nothing. And yeah, I fell." His lie came out flat, but it would be enough to convince Sokka, hopefully.

Unfortunately, Zuko wasn't finished

"And I was just wondering if… Katara could heal it?" She tensed. _What is he doing?_ Sokka just nodded, though.

"Oh," he replied. But before Katara could let out a sigh of relief, Sokka's brow furrowed. "Wait, how do you know that she can heal people?" Zuko froze, and Katara's gut plummeted.

_Quick, think of something!_

"Sokka, you idiot," she said a little too loudly, flustered, "I healed Aang right in front of him, remember?" Sokka grimaced, and held his hands up.

"Right, sorry, I forgot," he said. She scoffed to hide her relief.

"Well, at least _some _people around here have decent observational skills." Sokka glared at her, and Zuko watched on in interest.

"What are you talking about?" He groused, waving his hands in the air. "I make _tons _of observations! I'm the idea guy, remember?"

"Yeah, and you're also the whining guy, remember?" She shot back.

He rolled his eyes. "No, I was the _complaining _guy." He wagged his finger at her. "If you're going to insult me, you should at _least _be consistent about it." She crossed her arms.

"Oh? Who says you can't be both?" He gave an exaggerated sigh and hung his head, then snapped it back up to stare at the sky.

"Whatever! You know what? I don't need this right now—I need meat. Later, sis." And with that declaration, he spun around, stalking back towards the ships' tower, grumbling. She couldn't hear exactly what he said, but she did manage to pick out the words 'morning' and 'grump' and 'moody waterbenders' and 'women'. She narrowed her eyes.

"I heard that!" She yelled after him, shaking her fist. He yelled back over his shoulder.

"What? I was just making an _observation_!" Her fingers twitched towards her waterskin.

"Sokka…" she growled. Someone coughed, and Katara turned. She blinked, seeing Zuko still standing there, looking warily between her and the retreating form of her idiot brother. She had almost forgotten that the firebender was there.

"Umm…" he began when he noticed she was staring at him. He scratched the back of his head. "Yeah…. Sorry about that…" Katara huffed.

"Let's not start _that _again." His lips drew together in what could have been a smile, if not for the fact that it looked like the action caused him pain.

"Right," he said slowly. He glanced back at Sokka just before he disappeared from view, then turned back towards her. "Does that happen a lot?" Katara raised an eyebrow.

"What, Sokka being an idiot? Every day," she said sarcastically. He snorted.

"I don't doubt it. But, I meant…" he paused, and waved his hand vaguely between her and the direction Sokka had stalked off. "That." Katara blinked in confusion.

"You mean arguing? Of course," she shrugged. "We're _siblings_, Sokka and I argue all the time. It's like, in the natural order of things." Then she remembered who Zuko's family _was, _and that they were anything but _natural_. "Wait, don't tell me that you never got into an argument with _your _sister," she asked, disbelieving.

Zuko pursed his lips and gave her a sour look. "Is it still considered an argument when the two parties involved are actually trying to kill each other?" She winced. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, staring out at the endless expanse of ocean around them.

"But… yeah, I suppose… when we were younger, Azula and I… 'argued', a lot." He looked at her out of the corner of his good eye. "Though there was usually still quite a bit of fire involved," he added dryly. She smirked, though it was dampened by surprise. It had been hard to tell at first, but now she was almost positive: Zuko actually had a sense of humor.

She never would have pegged the typically surly teen as the type to crack jokes—that was usually Sokka's department. Of course, Zuko's jokes lacked that corny, obvious pun-humor that her brother seemed to favor, and leaned more towards the cynical and sarcastic—much like her own.

Zuko smirked hesitantly in return, then frowned and looked away again. "And, of course, Azula was always the one who came out on top," he muttered. She huffed and tried to blow away his sudden bad mood.

"Of course she did," she quipped, rolling her eyes dramatically, "She's a _girl_. Women just naturally have more sense than men, so it's not like it's a fair fight. We will _always _win in an argument." Surely he had been alive long enough to figure _that _out, right? Or maybe at least his Uncle had taught him? Although, to be fair, Sokka still hadn't quite grasped it, yet, either…

Zuko just stared at her with his eyebrow raised, his lip twitching.

"What?" She frowned. He crossed his arms.

"Who ever said that women are smarter than men?" She shook her head.

"I never said they were smarter, just more sensible. Take my brother for example—he's a genius—" Zuko succumbed to a sudden coughing fit, and Katara _almost _reached out to help him, before she caught the amused, incredulous look in his eyes. She folded her arms back to her chest, glaring.

"If you'd let me _finish_," she said sharply, and he immediately straightened up a little, though the impish humor still danced behind his eyes, "Sokka is a genius, but he's also incredibly stupid." He raised an eyebrow and folded his arms.

"Care to explain that one?" He asked, dubious.

"Sokka always comes up with these crazy, brilliant schemes and inventions—like, once, he managed to evacuate the citizens of an entire Earth Kingdom city under Fire Nation control, in plain sight, with absolutely no casualties and no resistance." Zuko's eyebrow nearly shot to his hairline.

"That…is actually pretty impressive," he admitted slowly. "I'd like to hear the rest of that story sometime…" Katara waved him off.

"I'm sure you'll get a chance to, just not right now." She cleared her throat, and Zuko waited patiently for her to continue. "Anyway, as I was saying, he's a stupid genius. He goes and pulls these amazing stunts one minute, then turns around and does something totally harepig-brained the next."

"Like…?"

"Like getting two fishhooks stuck in his thumb." He frowned.

"Two? How did he manage to do that?" Katara smirked at the memory of her brother, screeching for her as he came into their tent, waving his decorated thumb in the air.

"Well, the first one was just an accident. He got the second one when he used another fishhook to try and dig the first one out." Zuko snickered.

"That's pretty impressive, too." Katara laughed, then sighed.

"See what I mean, though? Without us women around to talk you men out of your stupid ideas, or at least clean up afterwards, the human race wouldn't stand a chance." Zuko's lips quirked into a droll grin.

"Well, without women, it's not like the human race would be around for too long, anyway." She blushed slightly, but turned away from him to hide it, sticking her nose in the air.

"And don't you forget it," she ordered him. She heard him snort.

"I don't think that will be a problem," he muttered, and a tiny, delighted smirk twitched across her face before she suppressed it.

_Katara: 1, Zuko: 0_

However, her stomach chose that exact second to give an obscenely loud grumble, and her moment of victory was ruined. She looked down to glare at her traitorous gut, and Zuko's voice, laced with humor, asked:

"Hungry?" Her dignity would not let her mind consciously acknowledge the fact that her face was probably bright red when she turned to glare at him.

"No, I'm still stuffed from the tiny bowl of eggs and rice I had yesterday morning," she sniped. He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Well then, in that case," he stretched his arms above his head, grunting as his spine popped into place, "You just hang out here on the deck, being full. I'm going to go get something to eat." And with that, he spun around on his heel and began walking away, arms crossed behind his head. Katara growled, glaring at his retreating back. After a moments' hesitation, she jogged after him.

"Hey!" She yelled after him, and he slowed down just enough to let her catch up with him. She kept pace beside him, huffing.

"What, they don't have sarcasm in the Fire Nation?" He looked at her from the corner of his eye, then away again.

"Nope. No sarcasm at _all_." She pouted.

"Okay, now you're just mocking me," she groused.

"Me?" He looked thoroughly offended. "Never," he drawled. She was flustered—upset at him for parrying her every blow in their verbal battle, as he did in their physical ones. But for some reason, when the growl of frustration she felt building in her chest came out, it came out as a short burst of laughter instead. Zukos' head snapped around, and he looked down at her in askance. Katara just shook her head.

"You know, I can't tell if I'm annoyed with you right now, or in awe." His brow furrowed in confusion.

"What are you talking about?" She smiled wanly.

"Just that… I don't know, it's like I don't understand you at all…" He frowned deeply, and she rushed to continue, "I just mean that, you know, I had this image of you built up in my head, but, talking to you now… it doesn't fit at all." His expression retreated, and looked pointedly ahead and away from her.

"Like I said, I've changed," he murmured. Katara bit her lip, considering.

Yesterday, he had fought with them against his sister and the Dai Li. And yet… every so often, while she was talking to him, a mental alarm would sound in her head, saying, '_it's Zuko! Fight! Run!_' At the same time, though, she _desperately_ wanted to believe that it wasn't true, that he really _had _changed. It wasn't fair of her to withhold her trust from him just because of who he was. People made mistakes—sometimes, lots of them, in Zuko's case. But everyone deserved a second chance; people had the right to try and redeem themselves…

_Just look at Jet…_

She tried to blink away the sudden pricking in her eyes. Yes, people could change, she knew that for a fact. And so far, he hadn't given her a single reason not to believe the sincerity of his claim. But he had given her plenty of evidence to support it—from the almost docile manner in which he acted around her, to the way he had seemed so hurt and lost and confused, down in the crystal cell…

Then again, maybe he _hadn't _really changed. Maybe he had always been that way beneath the bluster and the rage, like a wounded animal just trying to defend itself. Maybe it had been desperation that had caused him to lash out at everyone, and not meanness.

Regardless, whether his previous behavior had been a mask or not, he could still return to it if people only treated him with spite. So, she would keep an eye on him, for sure, but she would try her hardest not to hold his past actions against him, and treat him fairly.

_Innocent until proven guilty, and all…_

That was just how they did it in the Water Tribe.

"I really think you have," she responded after awhile. Zuko's entire body seemed to give a little jolt, and he looked down at her in surprise, and maybe… hope?

"You…" his voice was thick, and he cleared his throat. "You do?" She smiled sadly, and she had to curb the impulse to comfort him. His expression was just so _vulnerable_, though, another thing she had never expected from him. But it was a look that her instincts told her she needed to hug and cuddle away. Somehow, though, she didn't think he would be very comfortable with the action, and honestly, it would be pretty awkward for her, too.

"I do," she affirmed. Then she smirked and looked to the sky. "I mean, just look at you! It's already noon and you're just now getting breakfast? What happened, Mr. 'I-rise-with-the-sun'?"

He looked sheepish. "I guess yesterday really wore me out," he admitted. Then he turned a wry grin on her. "That, and I had this horrible headache that kept me up half the night," he said slyly, tapping the back of his skull.

"I said I was sorry—and I fixed it, didn't I?" Katara muttered, chagrined. He cocked his head to the side.

"Well, not all of it," he reminded her, drawing her attention to the large bruise on his face. She rolled her eyes.

"Yes, my _sincerest_ apologies for not healing a bruise that wasn't even there last night," she sniped. Zuko grinned slightly as he turned a corner.

It occurred to her just then that she had been blindly following him since she started walking with him on the deck, and that she actually had no idea where she was on the ship, or which way they were going.

"Wait," she said suddenly, "so where exactly are we going?" Zuko _seemed _like he knew what he was doing, but she didn't like being kept in the dark…

He looked down at her, quirking a brow. "The galley," he stated, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. "You _do _want to eat, right?" She scowled at his tone.

"Well, excuse me for not knowing where the kitchen is on a _Fire Navy_ ship."

"Galley, not kitchen," he corrected absentmindedly. Then he gave an amused grin. "Wait, did you really not know where we were going?" Okay, maybe she was imagining things, but she could have _sworn _that she heard a 'stupid Water Peasant' underneath his words. Here she was, trying to be nice to him, and all he can do is act superior?

"No, but I'm sure I can figure it out on my own," she bit out, marching ahead of him.

"Katara," he called behind her, amusement in his voice. She scowled even deeper.

_Stupid royal firebenders!_

She walked even faster. Nope, she hadn't had very much patience this morning to begin with, but she had just used up the last of it on the jerk behind her. She was actually still pretty mad, but she had forgotten until just now.

"Katara, wait," he called out again, serious this time.

She didn't slow down. All she wanted was some food, and some rest, and maybe a little alone time, too. She sniffed the air, following the scent of cooking fish and rice down the hallway to the kit—galley.

She knew she was being a little petty, but Sokka had been right in at least one thing today—she _was_ grumpy, and she knew it. But so what? She had plenty of reasons to be in a bad mood, and distracting conversations with ex-Fire Princes aside, she was definitely in one. And dammit! People had better stay out of her way 'till she blew off some steam, 'cause if they didn't, she was going to have to take it out on _them_.

She heard the indistinct hum of many voices up ahead to her right, and she followed the sound and the smell to a large, brightly-lit room. She stood in the doorway for a moment, watching. To her left was a kitchen-like area, with pots and pans and knifes hung on the wall above odd, steaming metal machines. A couple of Water Tribesmen she vaguely recognized were standing there, busy cleaning and gutting some of the fish she had smelled cooking.

But the larger part of the room, to her front and right, were filled with long, narrow metal tables, each with two equally-long metal benches—bolted to the floor—for sitting. About half of the tables were full, and she spotted her brother sitting at the second-closest table to the door. Her Dad and Bato sat on either side of him.

She heard footsteps click behind her, and she saw Zuko's hand grip the doorjamb from the corner of her eye. He was close enough that, despite the too-warm air of the dining hall before her, she could feel his body heat warming her back.

"Katara, what…" He started, but trailed off.

Probably because everyone in the room was now staring at them. In the sudden hush of silence that fell, she heard Zuko's breath catch.

Katara looked her father straight in the eye, and he held her gaze unhappily. She glared at him in warning.

_Don't you _dare _make a scene._

He didn't make any move to stand or call her out, though, and she turned away from him before she could read any more of his expression.

Her footsteps seemed unnaturally loud as she strode forward, walking with her head up high and her vision fixed on the little buffet laid out on the far side of the room. The few men who did meet her gaze as she walked past them immediately looked away, and said nothing.

_Smart guys._

Halfway there, she heard Zuko start to follow behind her. It was still almost unbearably quiet in the room, and she could still feel the stares of the Tribesmen. If possible, it made her stand up even straighter.

She snapped up a plate and a pair of chopsticks, slapping down a pile of rice onto the dish with a little more force than was strictly necessary. She threw on some steamed vegetables next, and then laid a greasy filet of mystery fish atop the rice. She didn't bother with a ladle for the sauce—just used her free hand to bend the sweet-smelling concoction straight out of the bowl and onto her plate.

She turned around and marched straight down the aisle between the two rows of tables, not stopping until she reached one of the few empty ones near the back of the room. She set her plate down on the edge of the table, and folded herself stiffly onto the bench.

The sound of her chopsticks snapping apart soothed her slightly, for some reason. Perhaps because she felt like snapping a few _other _things in half, but just didn't have the opportunity to, yet.

She picked at her food, chewing and swallowing without really tasting—she was far too hungry for that. She looked up with her mouth full, chomping angrily, scanning the room with disdain. Then she spotted Zuko, plate in hand, standing aimlessly in the middle of the room. He was glancing around the room nervously, obviously looking for a safe place to sit. Katara sighed loudly, though inwardly, she was vindictively pleased.

Now_ who doesn't know where to go_?

"Zuko, just sit down," she barked, pointing towards the seat across from her. Everyone who had finally gone back to minding their own business was now staring at them again. Her jaw clenched.

Zuko walked forward slowly, hesitantly, as if he were lone turtle seal sliding past a pack of porcupine-wolves. He sat down shakily across from her, his face as drawn and set as a statue. He exhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a good thirty seconds and waiting before opening them again and starting on his food.

Neither of them said a word, and as they ate in silence, the quiet around them dispersed, conversations and chatter picking up again, though not nearly as loud as before she and Zuko had entered the room.

She swallowed a particularly salty piece of fish and coughed. She made to grab for her glass of water…

Which, she realized then, she had forgotten to get.

"Dammit," she growled, and her dining partner looked up from his plate.

"What?" She sighed. She was going to have to get up and walk across the room to get a drink, and draw attention to herself again.

"Nothing, I just forgot to get a drink." She set her chopsticks down and was about to stand up, but he beat her to it.

"No, wait, it's okay, I'll get it," he said in a rush. He stood up abruptly, nearly upsetting his plate off the table, and half-marched, half-walked over to the other side of the room. As expected, at his sudden movement, all eyes were once again on him, but he didn't seem to be paying them any attention. He was back with their drinks within seconds. She vaguely realized her mouth was half-open, and immediately shut it.

"Here," he said shortly, handing her a cup and sliding back into his seat with surprising smoothness. She took it from him carefully.

"Err…" she started, waiting for her brain to start working again, "Thanks," she said slowly. He grunted in response, tucking into his food again, and avoiding her gaze.

She blinked. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it all, really. She supposed it was…_nice_. It was a pleasant change from what she had gotten used to—someone doing something nice for _her_, instead. She was so accustomed to being the 'doer' in the group. When clothes needed mending, food needed preparing, hurt feelings needed soothing, or wounds needed tending, she was the one everyone seemed to turn to. And she didn't mind it so much—she kind of liked being the one that people depended on, and she fell into that role almost automatically, now. But on the rare occasion someone served her, it made her feel like she was getting special treatment of some kind.

Zuko's simple, unprompted gesture of kindness touched her, and she immediately felt guilty for brushing him off. Bad mood or no, that still wasn't any excuse to be indiscriminately mean to him. Hadn't she just resolved to treat him fairly? She took a long, slow sip of her drink, then sighed. The cup clinked loudly as she set it down, and Zuko looked up from his food.

"Hey," she started, then glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of someone moving towards them. She froze, her spine stiffening. Zuko frowned and turned, following her line of sight. He stiffened.

Walking towards them slowly and with purpose, was Hakoda, her father, and the person she _least _wanted to deal with right now.

He stopped in front of their table and looked down at her. "Katara, we need to talk."

"It can't wait until we're finished eating?" She asked venomously. Hakoda's eyes narrowed, taking in the 'we' of her statement. Zuko seemed to shrink a little in his seat.

Her father crossed his arms. "No, I've already waited 'till way past morning, and we need to get this out of the way and over with as soon as possible." Her chopsticks nearly snapped in half beneath her white knuckled grip. So that was how he wanted to play, was it?

Katara took one last bite of her food, chewing slowly, thoughtfully. She took another long drink of her water, all the while ignoring her father. Zuko fidgeted nervously across from her. She set her chopsticks down with a careful click, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then exhaled in a sigh. Then, only then, did she acknowledge her dad.

"Then talk away, dad." She stared up at him defiantly, flexing her hands in her lap.

And though her mind was simmering with pent up stress and anger, she was glad for one thing, at least: she had a ready source of water at hand, thanks to Zuko.

Because she had a feeling that things were about to get ten different kinds of ugly.

~o0o~

**A/N **– Okay, I think I've finally figured out why it is that I like writing from Zuko's perspective better than Katara's: You see, Zuko is usually very introverted—there's a lot more going on _inside _his head than what he says aloud, whereas Katara is very, very vocal with her thoughts and opinions. I'm not saying that she's not a complex character—she _is_, but she is also much more prone to actually _show _all those different sides of herself than Zuko is. Basically, by telling the story from Zuko's perspective, I get to tell more of the story. I think it works better for us to get to _see _Katara's actions, and _hear_ Zuko's thoughts, then the other way around—there's just so much _more _story to tell that way.

*I can has reviews, please?* (C'mon, people, I got this chapter out _fast_!)


	4. Tempered

Hakoda stared at his daughter in shock, though why he had expected any response other than anger from her when he was being so demanding and rude, she couldn't begin to imagine. She sat there, tapping her foot against the metal floor in impatience, waiting for him to speak. She wondered if he had expected her to get up and follow him to somewhere more private, but he hadn't asked, and she wasn't going to offer. If he wanted to do this in front of everyone and embarrass himself in front of his men, she wasn't going to stop him.

'Well, go on, talk," she prompted. His flabbergasted expression turned stern, and his blue eyes glinted with well-controlled anger.

"Katara," he started off in a low voice, yet it carried far in the deadly hush of the room, "Now I _know _that your Grandmother and I have taught you to be more respectful than that, and so did your mother." Katara felt a twinge in her heart at that, but her sorrow was drowned out by indignation. That had been a low blow—not only had he tried to guilt her into being obedient by bringing up her _dead mother_, but he was trying to embarrass her by reprimanding her about manners in front of the entire tribe.

"You knew full well that we were going to have to discuss this," he continued, "but being hostile about it is certainly not going to help your case." Her case? He made it sound like she had done something wrong!

"Well, dad, maybe I'll start being a little more respectful when you start respecting _me_," she spat. The corners of his lips turned down.

"What do you mean?" He asked, genuinely confused. Katara gave a short, harsh laugh of incredulity.

"What do I _mean_? I _mean_ that you don't respect me, dad! You basically just ignored everything I had to say yesterday—you wouldn't listen! I already told you that Zuko is on our side, shouldn't that be enough?" She huffed and crossed her arms, looking up at him in disappointment. "Do you think I'm stupid or naive? Do you not trust me, dad?" She asked, hoping her voice didn't betray as much hurt as she felt.

Hakoda had a pained look in his eyes, but he shook his head. "I trust you, Katara, of course I trust you, and I know you're a sharp girl. But you have to understand—you're still young, you don't know these people like I do, you don't know what they're capable of. They are not the type to honor a truce," and at that, Zuko visibly flinched. "As soon as something better comes along, they will break it."

Katara fumed. How dare he. _How_ _dare he_ tell her what she did and didn't know—her of all people! She knew _exactly_ what the Fire Nation was capable of, had known it since she was just six years old. So where, exactly, did her father get the _gall_ to tell her that she didn't?

"You think I don't know that?" She yelled, standing up to look him straight in the eye. He didn't even blink, which only made her next words even angrier. "Do you really think I would trust just _any_ firebender? You _know _how I feel about the Fire Nation! So if I'm telling you that one of them is on our side, don't you think that means that I must be _absolutely_ sure about it?" There, her dad was a logical person—surely _that _would be enough to get him to at least _think _about it.

But Hakoda just shook his head again. "I know you're really sure about this, honey—believe me, I can tell." He placed his hand on her shoulder in a move that was probably meant to calm her, and the thinnest ghost of a smile appeared on his face before it disappeared into a worried frown. "But I'm still not convinced that having someone from the Fire Nation royal family aboard the ship with us is safe, or wise. And when it comes to your safety, I'd rather have you alive and mad at me than to get your way and be hurt because of it."

Katara felt a blank coldness come over her as she became acutely aware of how _on her own_ she was at that moment, a young girl amidst a mob of men and warriors. It was akin to how she felt in the deepest time of the South Pole winter, curled up alone in her dark tent, under suffocating layers of fur that could never completely fend off that deep, pervasive chill.

That was it, then. Her father just flat out didn't trust her judgment. He was treating her conviction about Zuko's change of heart with aloof condescension, like it was some childish belief in a ghost story. And no matter what she said, he wouldn't change his mind about it.

But that sure as hell didn't mean she was going to stop trying.

She jerked her shoulder away from him, and Hakoda's face contorted with shock and hurt. Taking a step backwards and to the side to place herself a little more between her father and the now wide-eyed firebender, she balled up her fists at her side and widened her stance, ready for blows if it came down to that. She leaned forward, facing her father.

Rage drove out the cold in her gut and made her body tremble. At that moment, she almost felt as if she could have spit fire herself. "How can you be so… so…UGH!" She let out a frustrated growl. She couldn't think of a single word strong enough to describe the outrageousness of the man before her, so she switched tactics mid-sentence, opting instead to point out the stupidity of his reasoning.

"My _safety_? How helpless do you think I am? I am a MASTER WATERBENDER, for spirits sake!" And as if the universe decided to help prove her point, at that moment, all of the water in the room began to jump and twitch in time to her fury. "I KNOW how to take care of myself! I don't NEED any protection—not from you, not from anyone! What do you think I've been _doing_ for the past few months, anyway? I've been traveling with the _Avatar_, I'm his waterbending teacher! Do you think we were ever _safe_, with the Fire Nation constantly on our tail? No! I can't tell you how many narrow escapes we've had!" Like the one they had _just _escaped from, but had her dad been worried about the ragged state they had shown up in yesterday? No, he decided that the person that _helped them escape _was a bigger problem.

She knew that everyone was probably staring at her now with their jaws on the floor, but she couldn't find it in herself to be embarrassed, or to even care. No, all she could really see right now was her father's face, which held an infuriating lack of shame for his mulish behavior.

"The siege of the North? I was there! I fought alongside all the other warriors and benders! I helped take down at least six different Fire Navy ships!" She jabbed a finger in her father's face. "So don't you tell _me _that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to fighting or safety, because I've been fighting, dad, I've been fighting _hard_, because I want this war to be over, just like we all do. And the best way for me to do that is to help Aang—whether it's by teaching him waterbending, orby making sure he gets a firebending teacher." She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice, emphasizing that she was _absolutely serious_ in what she was saying.

"So if you want to stand there spewing all of your ridiculous reasons for why Zuko can't stay with us, go right on ahead. But I'm telling you right now that it doesn't matter—Zuko is an ally now, and we can't afford to turn our backs to him. He is going to help Aang master firebending, and he _will _be staying with us," she declared, then delivered the kicker. "I suppose, though, whether you kick us overboard or not is entirely up to you."

Her breath was a little uneven, and her throat felt raw from all of the yelling she had just done, but it was a pleasant ache, the kind she only got when she had vigorously exercised out all of her frustrations.

The line had been drawn in the snow now, clear enough for everyone to see. She glanced around briefly and caught Zuko's eyes—two wide, disbelieving golden discs among a sea of blue. Sokka was staring at her like she had just grown another head, and had actually turned around in his seat to watch the proceedings—completely ignoring his food.

The stunned silence at her bold declaration was like a physical presence in the air, and she could have sworn that the already stuffy room felt ten degrees hotter. Having let off quite a bit of steam in her tirade, she no longer felt as puffed up and fearless as she had while making her statement, and the crushing quiet was beginning to get to her.

_Say something_! Nervousness began to creep up her spine as she was left hanging, now doubting the wisdom of exploding like that in front of a good half of her native community.

"Hey, is this where the grub's at? I can—woah, hey, what's up with _you _guys? You're all vibrating like crazy…" Toph's loud, alto voice shattered the silence, and Katara and just about everyone else in the room turned to look at her. The blind earthbender was standing just inside the room, resting her palm against the metal lip of the doorway and frowning in concentration. She cocked her head.

"Sugar Queen, you been fighting or something? Your heart's jumping all over the place…" It took Katara a slow second to realize that Toph was addressing _her_, and she gave herself a mental shake to get back into gear.

"No, Toph, I was just telling my dad that he can't kick Zuko off the ship," she informed the earthbender lightly, priding herself on the control she held over her voice.

Toph frowned even deeper and began strutting—there was no other word for it, really—towards the center of the commotion, stopping next to the bench where Zuko still sat stiffly. Toph struck a pose, arms crossed across her chest, hip jutting out to the side, and turned her firm gaze towards Hakoda, her eyes level with his waist.

"Why d'ya wanna kick him off the ship? What did he do?" Katara smirked. Leave it to Toph to get straight to the heart of the matter, and for once, she was immensely glad for the younger girl's blunt manner. She was also happy that she had some backup, now, as Sokka hadn't even _attempted_ to aid her. Zuko had also been frustratingly silent, even though it was _his _fate that was being debated.

For his part, Hakoda's jaw worked silently, maybe having trouble coming up with a reason that the firebender needed to be sent away that wasn't '_he was born_'.

Katara decided to answer for him. "He hasn't _done _anything." Which, was technically a lie, but Katara didn't think that bringing up Zuko's past pursuits would be very helpful at the moment. "But my dad is convinced that he's going to kill us in our sleep or something," she said bitingly, sending the man a glare for good measure. To her satisfaction, his rigid expression wavered slightly.

Toph blew her bangs out of her eyes, a gesture Katara had learned signified annoyance, then she scoffed, muttering something unintelligible. She suddenly leaned to the side and slapped her hand on the metal bench, inches away from Zuko. He jumped at her sudden proximity, hands half-raised to defend himself, but Toph made no move to get closer to him.

"Hey, Hothead," Toph addressed him, turning to stare in his general direction. "You planning on killing us in our sleep?"

Zuko blinked rapidly, his face shifting between confusion and annoyance and nervousness, until he finally spluttered, "No! I wouldn't—I mean, why would you even—No!" Toph narrowed her eyes, drumming her fingers against the steel of the bench, but otherwise remained still. Zuko looked at her, perplexed, and glanced around at their audience, wary. Katara saw Toph's face screw up in frustration and the earthbender growled, abruptly turning towards her. She waved her hand in a sharp sweeping gesture, drawing the stares of the Water Tribesmen.

"Okay, show's over people—now everyone _get out_. I can't work under these conditions, what with you guys making Sparky here jumpier than a Rabbaroo." Katara suddenly understood what Toph had been trying to do, and she grinned in triumph. Now she could give her dad solid proof that Zuko was—relatively—trustworthy. The waterbender looked to her father with a smug grin. Hakoda's frown was impatient and curious at the same time, casting glances at the little earthbender every now and again.

"Toph is a master earthbender—she can feel the vibrations of just about anything through earth or metal, including how a person's heart is beating, and their breathing," Katara explained. The warrior looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"What does that have to do with anything?" He asked in a tone that sounded condescending to Katara's ears, and she bristled, her briefly-settled anger rising to the surface again.

"I wasn't _done explaining_, dad," she bit out, flexing her fingers, which had been sorely aching to water-whip something—or some_one_—into oblivion. "It means that when Toph is listening to someone's heart and breathing, and they lie, she can tell." Understanding and amazement dawned in her father's eyes, but it was soon marred by doubt. He looked down dubiously at the green-clad girl, who was now tapping her foot in impatience, waiting for her command to be followed.

Katara felt like beating her head into the table—or maybe her father's, or maybe even Zuko's: this whole ordeal was kind of _both _of their faults, so…

_No, Katara. _ She growled. Stupid conscience. _ Breathe in, breathe out… calm… gooooood… now, think this through…_

She sighed. Okay, so, she had a way to verify that Zuko really was sincere about being on their side now, but if her dad didn't believe that Toph could actually do such a thing, what good would it be? She ground her teeth together. Why, oh _why_ did she have to be born into a family of stupid, stubborn, hogmonkey-headed, infuriating men?

As if he heard her mental pleas to the spirits, Sokka chose that moment to rise from his seat and address their father.

"It's true dad—really! I've seen it in action. Toph's like a… a living lie-detector!" Sokka grinned in that stupidly endearing way he grinned when he thought he'd done something clever, but Katara could only glare at him sourly.

_Oh, so _now _he decides to chime in. Thanks for all the help, big bro_.

But at Sokka's reassurance, Katara saw something solidify in her father's eyes, which she recognized a second later as conviction. And part of her whispered that she should be glad that her father had accepted Toph's abilities as genuine, but that part of her was also busy hiding in a dark closet in her mind, cowering from her rage.

_Oh, so he'll believe _SOKKA _but not _ME? Katara seethed. That was just so _typical_. _Oh, you're a girl, you're so young, you don't know what you're talking about…_

It was like the North Pole all over again! She was _so freaking sick_ of all this chauvinism! How many times did she have to prove herself before people—including her own father!—would take her seriously?

Meanwhile, her father nodded. "All right then, let's move to another room on the ship, where we can do this without distractions," he addressed—_ordered_ them, looking at Toph. He started to take a step towards the door, _leading _them out of the room, and Katara felt the last vestiges of her control snap.

"NO!" She yelled, stomping her foot. "We are doing this RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE, and we are ENDING this whole ridiculous thing!" She whipped around to face her father, trying to pin him to the spot with imaginary ice daggers.

"YOU! STAY AND LISTEN!" She caught his gobsmacked expression before she whirled around to face the rest of the gawking Tribesmen. "EVERYONE ELSE—OUT! NOW!" They paused for a moment, and in their second of inaction, she seriously considered flinging every single one of the men out of there with her water. But at some unseen signal, the warriors began to shuffle out, cutting across the room as far away from her as was possible in the enclosed space.

"You tell 'em, Sugar Queen," Toph cheered dryly. Katara huffed, scowling at the girl. It was hard to tell if the girl actually approved of her tirade, or if Toph was just mocking her. But some of her anger drained away, at seeing the earthbenders' cheeky grin. It felt a little better, knowing she wasn't alone in this battle.

By this point, Katara deemed that the room was sufficiently emptied of third-party observers, and the interrogation could begin. She snapped her head around to the fire Prince.

"Zuko!" She said forcefully, leaning down a bit to his sitting level. He tensed up at her sudden movement, looking up at her warily. "Give me a completely honest answer," she ordered, looking him straight in the eye. She paused for effect, then:

"Are you going to betray us?" Toph had replaced her hand on the bench, and was concentrating deeply, reading Zuko's every muscle movement, scanning for any deception. From the corner of her eye, Katara saw her father standing there stiffly, his arms crossed over his chest imposingly. He looked down at the firebender unsympathetically, expectantly, waiting for an answer.

Katara, too, was impatient. How many seconds had passed since she had asked the question? Ten? Twenty? As the seconds ticked by and the teen still did nothing more than sit there sweating silently, his face distraught, Katara felt a niggling, cold fear creep into the back of her mind.

She was so sure; she just _knew _that the troubled boy had been telling the truth when he'd said he'd changed… But what if he _hadn't_? What if this really _was _just another convoluted plan to 'capture the Avatar'? What if he was just using them?

Anger shook her again. If he was planning on betraying them, if he had just been stringing her along this whole time, if he made her look like a fool after openly putting so much trust in him… Well, her father wouldn't have to worry about throwing him overboard anymore. Because she would make sure they never saw hide nor hair of him again.

There wouldn't even be that much of him left to find.

Katara was about two seconds away from blowing up at the prince, her frustration having reached its' breaking point, when Zuko suddenly closed his eyes, his nervous expression evaporating. He took a deep, cleansing breath, then another, and his face relaxed into a mask of calm. Utter peace seemed to wash over his entire posture, and when his eyes reopened a few seconds later, they shone with an intensity and sincerity that froze Katara to the spot when they focused in on her.

"I promise, no, I _swear_ to you, that I have no intentions of harming your family," he uttered, and Katara felt the slightest bit of relief when Zuko withdrew his penetrating gaze from her and swept it over to her father. They stared at each other stubbornly, proudly, each unflinching. Katara could almost see the battle of wills being exchanged as they stood there, waiting for Toph's verdict. And after a few tense seconds, she spoke:

"He's telling the truth," she declared, and Zuko relaxed visibly. Hakoda just frowned again, looking almost disappointed.

Katara had expected to feel relieved and triumphant when Toph proved her right. She thought she would feel that smug pleasure that came from winning a difficult battle, as she had just now against her father. But she felt none of those things, only a sort of burned-out hollowness, filled with the simmering remains of her anger and hurt and frustration.

In short, she felt terrible.

"Great. Wonderful. Glad we could get that out of the way," she rambled, suddenly pressed by the urge to _get the hell away _from there. She started marching towards the exit, stepping hastily around the edge of the table that was blocking her way, but a firm, careful hand caught her shoulder, putting just enough pressure on it to keep her from moving forward without resorting to ducking under it.

"Katara, wait," her father began, but Katara turned around, holding a hand up to his face, cutting him off.

"No, dad. We talked, Zuko's staying, end of story. I'm not hungry any more," _lie,_ "but I'm still tired. I'm going back to bed." She turned on her heel and left, trying to ignore the weary expression of her father's face, and focused only on the door.

As she sped away, she noticed with a start that Sokka was still in the room, hanging back near the doorway with an uneasy grimace. Katara narrowed her eyes. Right, she had been angry at him, too.

"Thanks for all the _help_ back there, Sokka," she hissed as she walked past him. He drew back a little at the venom in her tone, and began to voice some sort of whiny protest.

"Hey! What…" But she was in no mood to bicker with her brother, as good as part of her suggested it might make her feel. So she just kept on walking until she couldn't hear him anymore.

She remembered vaguely the way she and Zuko had come up—_damn, she really _should_ have been paying attention to where she was going. Stupid Prince_—but her remaining rage fueled her to keep storming down the metal corridors, and was only ignited further after each dead end or wrong turn. She passed by several of the Tribsemen who were still loitering around the halls after she had evicted them from the galley, but like before, they just got out of her way and made no attempt to speak to her. She honestly didn't know what she would have done if they hadn't.

Finally, after nearly fifteen minutes longer than it should have taken, Katara emerged from the tower onto the deck of the ship. From there, she knew her way back to her bedroom, which she barreled towards with great haste.

Winding down the metal stairs into the dank, dark underbelly of the ship, Katara's thoughts plummeted.

How could everything get so messed up so fast? One minute, she's getting ready to plan the battle that will finally bring peace to the world and bring her family together again, and now…?

Now, in a cruel twist of fate, her family _was _back together again, but it was not the happy reunion she'd often daydreamed about.

_Idiots! They're all so insufferable!_

How could he? How could he be that way? These were the people she _loved_, so how could they all make her feel so miserable? She had been yearning to see her father for two years, since the very day he left, and now that she finally could she could barely stand the sight of him. Every word he spoke to her prodded embers of rage nestled deep in her heart, even when she logically knew that they shouldn't. Everything about him made her angry; from the way his voice was deep and familiar, to his easy smile, to his carefree laughter—_how can he laugh when…when…—_to the way he seemed to have aged far more than anyone had a right to in such a short amount of time, to the way she could see herself in him, and even more of Sokka…

And her brother! Why hadn't he helped her? He had been sitting _right there _the whole time and hadn't bothered to even throw a _word _in until Toph had shown up. She looked after him, mended his clothes, cooked his food, and wrapped his wounds for all this time and he can't even help her do something that _he knows needs to be done too_? So _what _if he didn't like Zuko? Despite her brother's general disdain for bending, she _knew _that Sokka knew just how important it was for Aang to master all of the bending disciplines before the comet came. So what reason could he have possibly had for keeping silent?

Speaking of which… Oh, sure, Zuko had just been _so _chatty when it had been time for him to mock her, but when she's defending him to her own father? Not a word. He just sat there, twitching! Even when they asked him a direct question he took forever to spit it out!

Infuriating! Everyone on this ship was infuriating! Everyone around her made her want to hit something!

It was probably for the best that she had come down here right away, the cool, collected side of her mind—(quiet as it was)—reasoned. She had stormed out of the room, even though when her father had grabbed her shoulder, she had desperately wanted to hug him tight and never let go. She had left Toph, even though she had wanted to sincerely thank the girl for all of her help. She had left Zuko, even though she had wanted to corner him and demand to know _why_ he hadn't defended himself when her father was threatening to send him away. She had swept past Sokka, even though she had wanted scream at him and chew him out for leaving her hanging like that.

All at once the magnitude of what had just happened came crashing down on her, and she was crippled with disappointment and grief. Her eyes prickled.

Why? Why had it happened like that? Why had she yelled at her father and brother and _everyone_? She didn't _want _to be so angry at them. It _hurt_. She wanted them to be a family again, she wanted him to be there with her and Sokka and Gran-gran and mom and…

And she wanted to tell him so many things. She wanted to tell him about all of her incredible adventures with Aang and Sokka and Toph. She wanted to tell him what had happened to _her _since he'd been away, and how much _she _had changed.

When she had imagined telling him that she was now, finally, a master waterbender, she had told him with dignity, giving him an expert demonstration of her skills, and he had looked at her with pride shining in his eyes.

She hated that it happened like this—that he had found out because she had screamed it at him to defend her insulted strength.

Why couldn't anything ever turn out right? Why did her father have to treat her like she was an ignorant, helpless child? Because of him, she had had to stop _being _a helpless child! It was _his fault _that she'd had to grow up so fast! He couldn't have possibly expected to _abandon _her and then her not learn to fend for herself in his absence!

She _hated _that man.

She loved him so, so much.

Katara finally arrived back at the door to her room. She flung it open. Stepped inside. Closed it with a screech. Shoved the lock in place. She half-ran, half-walked to her bed and threw herself onto it, curling up into a ball in the center. She closed her eyes, drew her sheets up close to her in a protective cocoon, and let out a deep, shuddering breath.

Then, and only then, did she let herself cry.

~o0o~

So far, things… were not going so well.

Zuko sighed to himself as he shoveled another load of coal into the roaring furnace, squinting his eyes at the resulting rush of sizzling hot air that came gusting up from the glowing pit of flame.

He was currently in the boiler room of the ship, fulfilling his self-assigned duty of maintaining the fuel levels of the vessel. He had volunteered himself for the task shortly after what he now thought of as 'the midday breakfast fiasco'. Despite the grudging, shaky trust in him that the Chieftain had offered after Katara had left, Zuko still felt compelled to prove himself to the man. He had wanted to show that he was willing to do his part and be helpful, so as a gesture of goodwill, he had offered to take care of the boiler room.

Shoveling coal was one of the hardest, dirtiest, and most despised jobs on the ship. It was grueling labor, and the room was incredibly hot, so it came as no surprise to him when the man took him up on his offer without hesitation.

Zuko had actually never worked the boiler room before—back when he had regular access to one, he had been a _Prince_, and royalty didn't shovel their own coal. But he knew enough about mechanics to figure out which knob and lever did what, and had barged into the boiler room back on his ship to demand why they weren't moving faster often enough that he knew how much fuel was required to move a certain size ship a set distance at a fixed speed.

He didn't really mind the task so much, though. Being a firebender, the heat had little effect on him—though he was now sweating profusely, despite having stripped down to only his pants and some thick, leather boots he had found among the loose belongings in his room. It also gave him a chance to exercise his sorely underused muscles, which had atrophied somewhat in the past few months of often poor-nutrition and lack of regular bending drills. And though he couldn't practice any actual firebending here—(because really, who wouldbe stupid enough to shoot giant bouts of flame in a small, pressurized room brimming with fuel?)—he was able to relieve some of the strain of going so long without manipulating his element by flicking away the errant tongues of flame that occasionally fluttered too high out of the mouth of the furnace.

The fact that this job also isolated him from everyone else on the ship and provided him with the silence and peace of mind he needed to actually _hear himself think and figure out what the hell he was doing,_ was just an added plus.

He grunted as he shoveled another load in. The strain of physical labor actually helped him think—sharpening his focus and drowning out all of the buzzing in his head until only the most vital, basic problems remained. It was still hard, though, to sort through all of the conflicting emotions that his current position evoked in him. He felt the despair of knowing that he had lost most of what mattered to him—maybe everything, if he never saw his Uncle again.

Yet at the same time, and for reasons he didn't fully understand, he felt more hope and happiness than he had in his whole life, save for the times he had been with his mother, and the morning he had woken from his fever dream.

He paused, leaning against his shovel, thinking about it. In fact, he had been feeling much better in general ever since he recovered from that incident. Even his low days had been sky-high compared to what he went through before. It was an odd feeling, like something heavy had been taken from his chest, something constricting… or maybe, more like, something had been filled. At any rate, the vague impressions he remembered from his dreams were both disturbing and comforting, leaving him with the notion that whatever knowledge or insights into his mind they contained must have been vitally important.

Which made it all the more frustrating that he couldn't recall them. He'd had an epiphany of some sort, and then promptly forgotten it. He could tell that _something _was different, in the way he saw things, or in the way he reacted, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly _what_.

_The person that is the greatest mystery to a man is often himself._

Zuko sighed and resumed his shoveling. With the thousands of proverbs his Uncle had delivered over the years, some of them were bound to stick with him. Every so often, one would filter through his memory at the most random times. It wouldn't be so aggravating if he could understand the half of them. But right now, with his Uncle no longer with him to guide him in person, the best he could do was to remember his past lessons. Fortunately, this one was fairly straightforward, _and _it was actually relevant.

So, it would probably take some time for him to sort his thoughts and motives out. Luckily, it looked like he would be spending a lot of time alone, as he had no intention of coming in contact any more than was necessary with the still-somewhat mistrusting Water Tribe men It would give him plenty of time to meditate, hopefully enough to let him sort out this mess before he did something he would regret later on, after he figured out…whatever it was he was supposed to figure out.

He was part of the way there, at least. Back in the galley, when Katara had asked him point-blank if he intended on betraying them, he had panicked. _No,_ he could have said; he _didn't_ intend to betray them…but then, he also didn't really intend _not _to betray them, either. If it somehow came down to either them or his Uncle, he knew what he would do.

_They are not the type to honor a truce…_

Zuko winced, the Chief's sharp words cutting him with shame. _Honor_. He had to use _that _word. Because that was what it _always _came down to, it seemed. It had made him feel even guiltier when Katara had vehemently defended him—_she _had been absolutely sure that he wouldn't betray them, that he would do the _honorable _thing.

But Zuko wasn't so sure he had any more honor left to lose.

So when it came down to it, when he had no choice but to deliver an absolute truth to a question he had no real answer to, he had had to stretch it a little. It had taken every grain of his self-discipline to center himself in the face of blind panic, along with several exercises borrowed from his firebending meditation techniques to control and dampen his emotions before he could find his voice.

And it _had _been the truth, what he'd spoken—if it had been anything less, he'd be swimming back to shore or worse by now. He couldn't promise them that he would never betray them, but he _did _know one thing: even if he had to leave them, even if he did end up, somehow, miraculously, back in the Fire Nation, he would never want to hurt them.

Unbidden, his thoughts drifted back to Song, and her mother, and all the kindness and hospitality they had shown him and his Uncle.

And how he had thrown it in their face.

Guilt and shame and regret were often associated with many of his memories, but they were particularly strong in this one. He had made that mistake once, and he didn't want to make it again.

(Though sometimes, he wished, for once, he could get it right the first time around.)

It still floored him every time he thought about how much _trust _the waterbender was willing to put in him, in such a short amount of time. How she was willing to defend him, even after everything he'd put her through. How she could laugh and joke and be _kind _to him. How, she was even willing to put her own reservations aside, just for the sake of giving him a second chance, because she'd said he _deserved _it…

_How amusing, _Azula's snide voice rang out in his head._ And some people wonder why it is that the other Nations were so easily crushed under our foot. Kindness? Trust? They make you weak. Just look at how easy it was to get them to believe you. They are a stupid, mindless flock of Koalambs, letting a Tigerwolf into their midst, and will remain blissfully unaware of the danger until they are ripped apart. You've done well so far, Zu-zu—don't waste the opportunity before you…_

He could—it was true, she _did _trust him more than was probably wise, like her father had said. Though Zuko was glad Katara had defended him, he had found that Hakoda's answers sounded more like the truth than he wanted to admit. He _did _have a golden opportunity to betray them, and it frightened him to know that.

Because he couldn't completely trust himself not to act on it.

_It would only be right. If she is so weak as to trust you, then she deserves to be betrayed._

No, no, no! He shook his head in frustration. It wasn't true at all! She wasn't weak! She was _strong_, he knew that from personal experience. Even when her bending abilities had been laughable at best, she had still had one of the most defiant and spirited personalities he had ever seen. And now she had the skill to back her temper up.

And _oh,_ had her fury been something to behold. Standing alone in a room full of warrior men twice her size, she had faced them all down without flinching, and _won_. For the fifteenth time, he reminded himself how immensely glad he was not to have her as an enemy.

And though he had been extremely mortified by her behavior at the time, with everyone staring at them like that, he couldn't exactly blame them. _He _had been staring, too.

Seeing her get so worked up like that for his sake made him feel… good. Not quite happy, but still…_good_. And something else, too. For reasons entirely unrelated to what she had been fighting about, he realized that seeing her angry, _period_, made him feel unsettled in the strangest way. In fact, seeing her angry, flustered, embarrassed, indignant, or petulant, and knowing he had caused it somehow… well, he liked it.

_Why _he did, was something he entirely refused to think about right now.

Or ever.

…

…

_She's a feisty one, all right._

He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and drive his Uncle's voice from his head, and immediately regretted it as he was reminded that he still had a rather large bruise there, courtesy of Katara.

_Ah, she whipped you, did she?_

Scratch that—he was pinching the bruise, no matter how much it hurt. Maybe the pain would snap him back to normal… whatever that was.

_Focus, focus, focus…_

Right. He had sworn not to hurt Katara and her family, and he had every intention of carrying through with that promise, come what may. It was the least she deserved for her kindness, and it was only right to repay her for it.

Things would be different this time—he was going to stop doing nothing but hurt the people who tried to help him. He wouldn't—_wouldn't_—mess this up, because it very well might be the last chance he ever had.

Zuko had a shovelful of coal halfway to the furnace when the door suddenly swung wide open, slamming into the wall with a screeching clang that was only slightly quieter than the angry yell that soon followed it.

"A_ha_! _There _you are!"

Zuko dropped the shovel in surprise; the only thing registering in his adrenaline-blasted mind was the mass of brown and blue Water Tribesman standing in the doorway, arms raised to strike.

~o0o~

**A/N **– Wow, this chapter was hard to write… also, before you get _too _mad at Hakoda, keep this in mind—he really _doesn't _know just how much Katara has grown up in the two years since he's been away. In his mind, she is still his baby girl, and he just wants to protect her in the best way he knows how—fighting the Fire Nation. And, yes, he is just a _little _bit chauvinistic, but hey, Sokka had to get it from _somewhere_.

I realize the pacing is a little slow so far, and I apologize for that. I'm also sorry that I can't get the updates out any faster than this, but I _do _work a full-time (48 hours!) job, and it takes me _at least_ an hour to write 500 words, so multiply that by twelve or more… plus, I don't like sacrificing quality for quantity.

Also, check out the Chong Sheng trilogy by RachelTheDemon. It's some goooooood stuff.

Hmm…. What else…? Oh yeah, you should leave me lots of reviews


	5. Opening Doors

Zuko hastily jerked himself into a bending-ready position, fists raised and aimed to deflect any incoming projectiles, when the warrior in the doorway suddenly jerked back, waving his arms in front of him.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait, it's just me!" He screeched, and the sudden shift in his behavior dampened Zuko's defensive instincts just long enough for him to actually take in what he was seeing.

In the doorway was, not one of the many bulky Water Tribe warriors, but Sokka, who was scrawny and pathetic in comparison. In his hands were, not two weapons, but a scroll of some sort and a half-eaten stick of meat.

Zuko let out a long breath, half out of relief, and half from frustration, and let his body relax from his rigid pose.

Sokka, who had screwed one eye shut and turned his body sideways in an—ineffective—attempt to avoid major fire damage, relaxed as well. Then he glared at Zuko.

"Geez, what's the matter with you! Do all firebenders have some sort of 'fry first, ask questions later' policy?" Sokka demanded hysterically. Zuko growled.

"What _is it_ with you people always jumping out of doors at me?" He muttered to himself. Sokka cocked his head to the side and frowned.

"Do what now? What are you talking about?" Zuko hadn't meant to say that aloud, so he didn't have a reply ready for the warrior's question. And he _definitely _didn't want to go with the truth this time around—telling the already suspicious Water teen about his surprise midnight encounter with Katara was pretty high up on the list of 'Stupid', right next to throwing fire around in the fuel room… and, from what he could gather, committing the first act would force him into doing the second pretty soon afterwards.

So Zuko defaulted to the silent, no-information approach, and brushed Sokka off.

"Nothing, nevermind," Zuko sighed, waving his hand dismissively. Sokka's brow furrowed at the gesture, and he snorted brusquely—a harsh, unpleasant sound that managed to convey indignation and disgust all at once.

"Sorry to offend _His Royal Jerkiness_," Sokka intoned in mock humility, making a grand sweeping gesture with his arm, "if you want to mumble a bunch of nonsense to yourself, who am I to question it?" Zuko just rolled his eyes, already tired of the conversation.

"So did you actually barge in here for a reason, or were you just looking for someone to annoy?" Zuko asked, cutting straight to the point. Sokka straightened up and crossed his arms, scrutinizing him with a frown, an expression he returned in kind.

"What?" Zuko asked irritably. Sokka just frowned deeper and tapped the scroll to his chin, as if deep in thought—though the notion of this idiot having thoughts deep enough to even make a puddle was unlikely, despite Katara's assertion that her brother was, indeed, a genius.

Thinking of Katara, even in passing, took Zuko down an entirely different train of thought. He suddenly remembered what he had been thinking about before Sokka had interrupted him, and how setting the boy's hair on fire, tempting as it was, would make him a liar. Hadn't he just vowed to himself—and very important witnesses—that he wouldn't hurt Katara's family? And, regrettably, as Sokka was a member of it, and therefore included in his blanket promise of non-violence, he would have to at _least _act somewhat civil to him.

"You know…" Sokka began slowly, though what he was referring to, Zuko had no idea.

"Yes?" Zuko asked tiredly, resigned to keeping the antagonism out of his words.

Sokka gave him a discerning look with those unnaturally colored eyes of his, and Zuko could suddenly see the resemblance between siblings showing through, with that piercing look they were both so adept at giving. Though, for some reason, he had to think that Katara's seemed a little more sharp.

Sokka opened his mouth as if to say something, then paused again, shutting it. He shook his head and sighed. "Nevermind, let's just go," he said flatly, and turned in place, gesturing out the door with his scroll, obviously expecting Zuko to follow him out.

Like some sort of _lackey_.

A muscle jumped in Zuko's eyebrow. "What?" He demanded sharply. Civility would have to wait. Because no matter how pathetic he had become, he wasn't going to blindly follow the orders of this boy, this… _peasant_.

Azula scoffed in his head. _You're banished, no longer a prince, a traitor, and you still hold yourself above them? Even backwater fools like him have loyalty—so where does that leave you?_

Zuko tried to gloss over the reminder of his current status, tempering in his sour mood and frustration into glaring stubbornly at the water boy until he gave an explanation. Still, though, guilt and shame welled up from the back of his mind, no matter how much he tried to ignore it.

Meanwhile, Sokka was scratching his head sheepishly. "Oh yeah, forgot to tell you, hehehe…" the teen trailed off in a chuckle. Zuko was not so amused. He continued to stare down the boy, though not as harshly. Sokka coughed awkwardly and straightened. "Right," he continued, now all business. "I was supposed to find you and bring you to the…control…room…place," he finished haltingly, and Zuko quirked a brow.

"You mean the helm?"

"Yeah, that," Sokka agreed, then looked at him and frowned. "What's with the look?"

At the warrior's offended tone, Zuko realized he had been grinning in amusement.

"It's just funny," he explained vaguely, and Sokka's frown turned into a scowl.

"_What's_ just funny?" Zuko rolled his eyes.

"That someone can spend their entire life living on a block of ice surrounded by water and know so little about boats." Apparently, it wasn't only Katara who was somewhat lacking in maritime vocabulary. _Control room place_…. At least 'kitchen' was an actual word.

Sokka huffed indignantly. "Oh, I know _plenty _about boats… _Water Tribe _boats. I can find and name every piece on one of our crafts blindfolded. But these giant metal monsters?" His lip twisted in distaste. "Well, it's not as if I've ever had much of a chance to explore the inside of one, and I can't say I was ever too eager to do that to begin with." Zuko winced a little. No, he had probably not wanted to see the inside of a Fire Navy ship, given that the only time they had been likely to was if they'd been captured and dragged back to the capital city for imprisonment…

_You _know _how I feel about the Fire Nation!_

_They took my mother from me…_

He remembered quite clearly the day he and his ship had arrived in that tiny, desolate village. Though, to even call it a village was a bit of an overstatement. It had been nothing more than a loose gathering of maybe eight or nine animal-skin tents, and a single ice building no more than two stories tall. He remembered marching down the long, slanted ramp of his ship surrounded by his crew, and the harsh crunch as he trampled the pure white snow beneath his boots. He remembered the feeling of hope and elation and excitement as he scanned the gathered crowd for wizened, powerful faces, and knowing that somewhere among them was his prize, the end of the game, his ticket to finally return _home_.

And from that day, crystallized forever into his memory, other images arose. At the time, they had been indifferent observations, simply assessments of his surroundings to be taken in and calculated to his advantage. Now though, flicking through them again, sadness and an inexplicable guilt twisted through him.

Of the small huddled mass of mothers, children, and the elderly, shivering in terror at his approach. Of how Sokka, the only male left in the village that came past his knee, rushed in blindly to defend his home from threat, even though he had to have known he didn't stand a chance. And, though Zuko was amused by it at the time, he had to admit now that that had been brave. Stupid, but brave.

The Southern Water Tribe was a desolate, sad, and pitiful place.

And it got that way because of the Fire Nation.

"Right. Guess I didn't think about that. Sorry," Zuko replied after a short pause, his curt words severely understating the nameless guilt he felt for the ruined Tribe. Sokka just stared at him. Again.

"_What?_" Feeling guilty or not, Zuko did _not _like to be stared at. It made him feel self-conscious, though he would sooner be gutted than admit that weakness out loud. Sokka kept staring for a moment longer, then gave his head a little shake, breaking himself out of whatever trance he had been in.

"Yeah… Right. Sorry. Just… thinking about something…" Zuko snorted. Apparently, thinking caused the boys' brain to stall out. There was another moment of silence, in which Zuko waited for Sokka to elaborate.

"Well?" he prompted, crossing his arms across his chest. Sokka took a bite from his meat kebab.

"M'well, what?" He said while chewing, looking around the boiler room with interest. Zuko's eyebrow twitched.

"Well, are you going to tell me _why _you want me to go to the helm?" At the none-too-polite reminder, Sokka snapped back to full attention, regarding the firebender seriously.

"Oh, right—well…" he paused and glanced around the room again, frowning. "Why don't I tell you on the way there? I've already been gone awhile searching for you, so…" he trailed off, raising an eyebrow and turning slightly towards the door.

Zuko sighed. He didn't see much point to demanding an explanation right now, since by the way the Water teen phrased it, Zuko didn't think he really had much of a choice in the matter. Whatever they wanted him for up at the helm must have been pretty important if they went so far as to specifically request _his _help, and making a fuss about going seemed like a fast way to get on their bad side. Well, worse side, anyway.

"Alright, fine, I'm coming," Zuko aquiesced as he toed the fallen shovel upright and placed it in its holder on the wall. Sokka nodded jerkily and turned around towards the door, exiting. Zuko followed straight behind him, grabbing his light overtunic from a hook on the wall as he passed it, shrugging it on as they walked down the metal corridor.

Zuko grimaced as the fabric stuck to his skin, his body slick with sweat from working in the boiler room. He would have preferred to towel off first, but complaining about feeling grimy would make him look like a wuss—and he'd rather be sticky than lose what little dignity he had left.

As soon as he was done fastening the last button of his clothing, Sokka, who was walking slightly ahead and to the right of him, glanced back.

"Here," he said, sticking the scroll right into the Prince's face. "You'll probably need this," he explained. Zuko jerked his head back away from the offending piece of paper and frowned. He snapped it out of the boy's hand roughly, glaring at the boy, who just rolled his eyes and chewed off another bite of meat.

Zuko held out the scroll in front of him and unfurled it, his brow furrowing as he scanned the contents.

"It's a map," he stated. Sokka _tch'_ed.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," he drawled. Zuko clicked his teeth, narrowing his eyes.

"No, I meant, 'Why would I need a map?' It's not as if you need my help to read a map," he replied dryly, then paused, smirking. "Unless you really _can't_ read a simple map…"

Sokka puffed and crossed his arms. "I can read fine, thanks," he said angrily, and Zuko heard him mutter several unpleasant new names for the firebender, though he couldn't really catch them all.

They kept silence for a little while after that, Sokka practically marching up the stairs towards the helm, and Zuko just keeping up behind him. Finally, Sokka turned his head to glare at him over his shoulder.

"Almost there," he said curtly, then turned back around.

_I _know _that_, Zuko growled mentally. Really, this was a _Fire Navy _ship—he didn't need the peasant's directions.

_There is nothing wrong with being poor, or working hard to earn one's living, _his Uncle's voice chided. Zuko frowned, wondering where the thought had come from.

Then, with a start, he realized that he still thought of the Water Tribe as peasants. Zuko sighed, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

During his time amongst the so-called 'peasantry', the majority of people he had run across had been good-hearted and kind. How could he mock them for their small means when he had been living the same way? Right then, Zuko resolved, that he needed to stop thinking of them as 'peasants'—the insult no longer held the same meaning as it used to, and using it felt slightly hypocritical. He figured it would take awhile before the term worked its way out of his system, though, as he still tripped over his own tongue when he tried to refer to the Avatar by name.

"I think I'll just let my dad tell you what he wants you to do," Sokka continued, snapping Zuko's attention back to the present. Zuko halted in his thoughts, repeating in his head what Sokka had just told him.

_Wait, _what?

Sokka pushed open the door to the helm, revealing Chief Hakoda and another man—Bato—poring over a mess of chart and maps that lay spread out over a large metal table. The men looked up at the sound of the door screeching open, and the warrior raised an eyebrow at his son.

"What took you so long? You've been gone for nearly an hour," Hakoda asked, amusement laced in his voice as Sokka walked into the room. "You didn't get lost, did you?"

Sokka scratched the back of his head with his free hand, casually slipping the hand that held his snack behind his back. When he spoke, his voice was much higher in pitch than it should have been.

"Well, not exactly…" he grinned and let out a nervous chuckle. The Chief just raised an eyebrow, his eyes fixing on the hand hidden behind the teens' back.

"And I suppose a detour to the kitchen had nothing to do with it, right?" Sokka's head shrank into his shoulders.

"Well, he _might _have still been in there…" Hakoda chuckled, the sound deep and pleasant, and clapped a brief hand around his son's shoulder.

"It's good to see some things haven't changed," he mused as he looked down at his son, eyes shining. Then he turned his head towards Zuko, and his face went eerily blank.

"We could use your help with a few things," the Chief stated, acknowledging Zuko's presence for the first time. "Seeing as you're Fire Nation, you probably have a lot of useful information."

Zuko, still standing in the doorway, felt very isolated from the small, familial group gathered in front of the map table—even more so now that three sets of blue eyes were staring at him expectantly. And the Chief's words… sure, they had been genial enough, but the undertone Zuko could hear carrying in the Chief's voice made it perfectly clear that the ex-Prince was an outsider—one of _them_.

'_You _are _Fire Nation', _he had said, not '_you are _from _the Fire Nation'_… And though it was a small omission, it made all the difference in the world.

Zuko cleared his throat uncomfortably, shifting his weight to one foot. "I guess you could say that," he said carefully. He was worried about just what kind of information they wanted out of him. "What exactly did you need help with?"

The Chief gave him a curt nod, then turned towards the table before him, laid out with nearly a dozen different maps, charts and other documents. He laid his hands on the table, smoothing out a few of the maps carefully, then leaned down to gaze over one of the papers.

"We have a rough idea of where we are right now, according to this map," he began, and Zuko took this as his invitation to enter the room. He walked up to the table, on Hakoda's right side, only standing as close as he had to to see what the man was looking at. Sokka and Bato took up similar positions on the Chief's left, with Sokka beside his father and Bato looking over Hakoda's shoulder.

"We captured this ship right around here, we think," he told them, tapping a finger on the map, "and we're definitely still in Chameleon Bay," he circled the large body of water with his finger, "but we've been drifting for close to two days now, so we're definitely not where we were before."

"Now," he continued, sliding over another document that, from the look of it, had definitely not come from this ship, "if we wanted to wait until nightfall, we could determine our position ourselves, but we don't really have that kind of time."

Zuko took a closer look at the paper and saw that it was a chart of the night skies, an oddly drawn character for "Spring" written at the bottom. The chart itself was a faded yellow, though the thickness of it suggested animal hide rather than paper. It was covered in little black dots, meant to represent specific stars, and lines were drawn between them to form dozens of different constellations, most of which were foreign to Zuko.

Obviously, the Water tribes still used the ancient method of navigation. Though, he supposed, in a culture accustomed to having control of the very sea itself, there had probably never been a need for anything more sophisticated than this.

"We've been fortunate so far," Hakoda continued. "There are many other Fire Nation ships on these waters, but none have come across us since this one. However, since it's highly likely that we _will _eventually encounter another ship, I want to be sure that we are as inconspicuous as possible."

Sokka leaned forward and looked around his father at Zuko. "And that's where _you _come in", the teen declared. Zuko raised an eyebrow.

"How so?" He had a vague idea of where this was going, but was apprehensive about making any guesses. He didn't want to make them angry by offering to do something they didn't trust him with yet.

"Sokka tells me that you've had experience commanding one of these ships, correct?" Hakoda asked, and Zuko's throat suddenly felt dry. Had Sokka told his father exactly _how _Zuko had gotten that experience, by hunting down his children? Did the man know that the banished Prince used to be their enemy in more than just name?

He quickly scanned the man's face for any sign of danger, any hint of a threat. But whatever the man's true feelings about him were, Zuko couldn't tell. Hakoda's eyes were completely blank of any telling emotion, perhaps restrained for the moment because the help Zuko could offer outweighed his potential threat. Whatever the case, though, Zuko thought that careful honesty was probably the best policy in this situation.

"Yes, for three years," he rapsed, then cleared his throat. He waited for the man to tell him what he wanted Zuko to do, but Hakoda only raised his eyebrow, a slight frown tugging at his mouth.

"How old are you?" The man asked slowly after a moment of silence, and Zuko's forehead scrunched up in confusion. What did _that _have to do with anything?

"I'll be seventeen next month," he answered carefully, still perplexed by the question. He doubted the man had suddenly developed a burning desire to learn everything about him, so why did he want to know?

In response, Hakoda only frowned deeper. Zuko fidgeted, unsure and a little anxious about whatever it was that had made the man so displeased, when Sokka broke the mood by screeching.

"Aw, _man_! You're _that much _older than me? ! I won't be seventeen for another half a year!" Sokka crossed his arms, disgruntled, and Zuko couldn't help but snort.

"Wow, six whole months, I feel so old," Zuko muttered. Still though, Zuko was surprised that he and Sokka were the same age—though, with the childish way the Water teen seemed to carry himself, no one would ever guess it.

After a moment more, Hakoda shook his head slightly, for some reason, and his frowning expression pulled back into his blank one.

"Right," he started again. "Then I take it you know how to determine our position using the instruments in this room?" Zuko's gut dropped at the question.

"Err… yes." Well, it wasn't a _total _lie. Did he know _how_? Of course. You didn't spend three years at sea, scouring the world and hunting down an erratic target without learning a thing or two about pinpointing specific locations on a map. Had he ever used these instruments _himself_? No. Not even once. Why would he, when he had had a perfectly capable helmsman at his disposal?

Hakoda though, just nodded. "Good. Go ahead and do that, then." He stepped back, giving Zuko a path to the panel of controls and meters. He gulped.

"Right now?" Zuko asked, then felt stupid for it. He saw Sokka snickering from the corner of his eye and glared at him, his face heating slightly in embarrassment.

Hakoda just crossed his arms and nodded again. "The sooner the better."

Zuko took a deep breath, psyching himself up, then took a halting step forward, then another. He paused, glancing at the table beside him, then snatched up a stick of fine charcoal and a blank piece of parchment, in case he needed to do any complicated math.

The walk to the control panel from the table was not a long one, but it felt like it took forever. He could feel himself sweating, and he prayed to Agni that he wasn't about to make a total fool of himself in front of these men.

_Stay calm and clear of mind. Relax yourself—look confident._

He sighed, taking another deep breath, then standing straighter. He stopped in front of the control panel and bent down slightly, occasionally tapping on one of the glass-covered meters to make it look like he was testing them or something.

In reality, though, his mind was racing frantically, trying to recall all the steps he would need to take to figure out their coordinates.

_Let's see… Latitude and Longitude… wait, Latitude is easier to get, I think. You just have to determine the position of the sun and then…_

He had a slow start, but eventually, thankfully, he remembered how to do it. He made several errors, but after only ten minutes or so he was nearly done.

He sensed, rather than saw Hakoda come up to stand beside him, and immediately dropped his line of thought. It was hard for Zuko to concentrate on things like math when a man he suspected quite possibly wanted him dead was literally looking over his shoulder.

It took Zuko another five minutes just to finish up the last little bit of calculations, and he circled the final figure at the bottom of his piece of paper. The entire time Hakoda had stood there, just inches away, completely silent. Nervously, Zuko glanced up slowly and out of the corner of his eyes at the Chieftain. He was surprised and relieved to find that the man wasn't glaring at him. Or even looking at him at all, actually. He just had a deeply pained expression on his face, staring out the window. Zuko frowned. What was he looking at?

Curiously, he tracked the man's line of sight and followed it out the window, where the setting sun cast a glare through the thick glass. Squinting his eyes through the light, he looked down to the main deck. And stopped, also staring. It was pretty obvious what Hakoda was staring at, and it definitely wasn't the Sky Bison.

No, the focus of their attention was much, much smaller than the flying beast of burden, and was decked out in tattered blue robes, a small colorful shape moving wildly across the surface of the dingy metal deck. Katara was practicing her waterbending, but it was the way she was doing it that made Zuko uneasy. Her normally graceful and smooth bending forms were nowhere in sight—instead, she tossed the water all over the deck with short, quick, choppy movements, more like she was punching invisible enemies rather than guiding the push and pull of the water. Vicious spikes of ice formed and melted on the surface of the deck, and great, fat tendrils of the ocean rose above the prow of the deck, like the arms of some horrific sea monster come to drag them to the bottom of the sea. He shivered slightly, remembering the monstrous form of the ocean spirit itself, made of water, wiping out an entire fleet of ships…

She was a Master Waterbender, he knew—that would be apparent to anyone watching. However, though her movements were powerful and fast and fierce, they lacked the control and precision that had always made her such a tough opponent. Her abilities seemed… compromised. Weaker. And he had enough experience in bending frustration to know why.

"She's still upset," Zuko remarked quietly, mostly to himself. He had spent many, many days like that—firebending out his rage on the deck of his ship from sunup to sundown, until he was too exhausted to feel angry anymore. But though it was a great stress reliever, it didn't do much to improve one's effectiveness in battle.

Beside him, Hakoda sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to deflate him.

"I know," he said softly. Zuko turned slightly to look at him. The man hadn't turned from watching Katara, and his face was drawn tight with worry and sadness. "I know she is."

Zuko felt a sudden pang—partly out of empathy, but a little bit of something else. It was obvious to him then that Hakoda loved his children dearly, and the knowledge left a bitter taste in Zuko's mouth.

Suddenly pressed by the urge to break the moment, Zuko cleared his throat and his thoughts, nervously offering his scribbled piece of parchment to the Chief.

"I'm finished," the Prince informed him simply, and Hakoda finally looked away from the window and down at the paper. He took hold of it and scanned it intently, holding it close to his face. "If you can match those coordinates to the numbers on the map, then we should be able to determine exactly where we are," he continued, feeling like he was rambling. Hakoda nodded slightly, then not looking up from the paper, asked:

"How accurate are these?" Zuko shifted his weight to his other foot.

"Err… within a mile." _I hope._

After a moment more, the Chief looked up from the paper to Zuko. He gave him another quick nod, and his lips turned up just the tiniest bit, in approval.

And at that look Zuko let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding, relief flooding him.

"Good, that will do just fine," the Chief continued, then walked past him to lay the paper back on the table.

It was good. He'd done a good job. He hadn't failed.

Zuko stood still, watching the three water tribe men huddle around the table, talking almost excitedly amongst themselves about their plans for the ship, and felt a light, easy feeling take up residence in his chest.

Turning around quickly, he searched the metal drawers for the ship's log book and fleet movement charts, gathering up the bundles of scrolls in his arms.

"If you want to look inconspicuous," he began loudly, and the group in blue all turned around to face him, "then you're going to want to know the names of the commanders and lieutenants you'll have to impersonate. And it wouldn't hurt to know the course this ship was set for before you captured it. either."

"That seems like a good idea," Hakoda agreed. "Why don't you show us what we need to know?" Zuko nodded quickly, taking a step towards the table, then pausing.

He turned his head around, looking out the window and down at the deck below, eyes scanning.

But Katara was nowhere in sight.

~o0o~

Today was a terrible day, Katara decided. It wasn't the worst day she had ever had, like, oh, say, two days ago, when Aang had nearly _died_, but it was still up there. Which was weird, because it usually seemed like her bad days only happened when she had to wake up early, but she'd slept till noon today.

Though she doubted even avoiding the morning would have been enough to prevent everything from happening. Heck, if she'd had that fallout with her dad _at sunrise_, it would have been nearly twice as catastrophic.

She sighed softly, setting the small bowl of soup on the nightstand. After crying herself to sleep, she had woken up a few hours later feeling hungry and restless. She hadn't really had a chance to do any major waterbending during her stay in Ba Sing Se—(other than the crystal caverns, of course: would they have been able to win if she had practiced more?)—and the deck seemed like a perfect place to do that, surrounded by her element.

Practice proved to be a failure of epic proportions, however. Every time she would try and concentrate on doing one of her more difficult forms, she would think about the terrible situation they were all in, and Aang's health, and the arguement with her brother and father… and then she wouldn't be able to do the move just right, and that would get her even more frustrated… And eventually it got to the point where her emotions were controlling the better part of the water she was bending, rather than form, and as a result they were sloppy.

After only half an hour of practice she got so fed up with the entire ordeal that she just gave it up entirely and headed for the galley. She was starving, but had been too upset to think about it at the time. Now though, with the dining hall just about empty, she had set about gathering up all the edible-looking leftovers she could find and cramming them into her face as fast as she could without abandoning some form of manners.

Full and somewhat content, she had almost left then, when she remembered that Aang hadn't had anything to eat in nearly two days. Guiltily, she had scavenged the kitchen for something he could eat, but it was nearly impossible to find something that wasn't either meat or a solid. Finally, though, she had found a few vegetables she could use to make a weak broth.

Now she was in Aang's room, sitting tiredly on the edge of his bed. She looked down at him, worry and fear creeping into her, though he seemed to sleep peacefully.

But that was just it—he was still sleeping. Even with the way he had been injured, he should have woken up by now. Except for the brief moment he had looked up at her straight after bringing him back to life, he had been still as death for two days.

What if he never woke up? She had heard of it before—people who got the sleeping sickness after being badly injured. What if she had brought him back to life for nothing? Like this, silent and unmoving, pale and sick, he looked like a corpse. What if he never opened his eyes or smiled in that goofy way at her again?

Unbidden, she felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Frowning, she bit her lip and wiped them away quickly with the back of her hand.

_Focus, Katara. You can do this_.

She didn't know for sure if Aang was going to be alright or not, but she was going to do her best to see that he did. She'd cried enough today—her tears wouldn't help her friend heal, only her care.

Steeling herself with a new resolve, she gently turned Aang over on his back and scooted him up against the headboard in a half-sitting position. He groaned a little in his sleep and Katara winced, softening her grip even more to try and minimize his pain. Carefully, she tipped his head back, leaving his mouth slightly open, and with her free hand, bent the vegetable broth straight out of the bowl and brought the hovering globule of soup in front of his mouth. Katara flexed her fingers together, easing the lukewarm liquid into a thin stream down Aang's throat. He coughed a little, but otherwise drank the liquid meal easily. When he was done, Katara sighed, laying him back down on his side and picking at his bandages.

She felt a lot like her dress looked—dirty and frayed and worn. She was still stressed out about everything that had happened today, despite food and sleep and exercise, but maybe a good healing session was what she needed.

Removing his bandages, she cringed at the sorry state of Aang's back. A good healing session was _definitely _what he needed, too.

Drawing out a good portion of her element from one of the basins Bato had delivered to Aang's room, she brought it to her hands, letting it coat them like liquid mittens.

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, and let her focus narrow down to only thoughts of healing, of easing pain, of mending hurt. She felt the familiar tingle as her water activated, then pressed her palms into the sleeping monks' back, wincing as his muscles spasmed from the direct contact.

She worked slowly from side to side, feeling little bits of her own energy leave her and enter the water, which then got absorbed into Aang's skin. Bit by bit, she could feel tiny patches of old, ruined, rotting flesh fall away to be replaced by new skin and muscle.

She could already feel herself calming down, the familiar soothe of her water putting her into a near trance, a peace of mind where she wasn't disturbed by—

"Hey, Sweetness!"

—people like Toph, whose timing was nowhere near as good as it had been earlier that day.

Katara flinched, her water dropping from her hands at the unexpected intrusion. Luckily, her sudden movement hadn't hurt Aang, but it very well could have.

Her calm now thoroughly gone, Katara turned to glare at the girl, though the gesture was somewhat wasted on the blind earthbender.

"_Toph_," Katara began, warning clear in her voice, "don't startle me like that when I'm healing Aang. With my hands on his back like that, one wrong move could seriously hurt him."

Toph frowned slightly, then shrugged. "Sorry. Didn't realize that you couldn't hear me come in. With the way everything echoes on this thing, I forgot how quiet it must seem to the rest of you."

Katara frowned, curiosity momentarily overriding annoyance. "What do you mean?"

Toph scrunched up her face. "Well, remember how back in the desert I couldn't see right because the sand made everything all fuzzy?" Katara nodded, then caught herself.

"Yeah," she spoke aloud.

"On metal, it's like the opposite. I can see really well. _Too _well. The vibrations shoot through metal so easily that they keep bouncing off of each other, and it makes it hard to sort them out. It's actually kind of starting to give me a headache," she complained.

"Do you need something for it?" Katara asked, concerned. As much as the people around her tended to give her a headache, she had to think that Toph's was a little more intense.

The younger girl just waved her off, however. "Nah, I can handle it." Though Katara of course didn't entirely believe her, she couldn't help but grin a little. How was it that the most macho person in their little group was a twelve-year-old girl?

"Anyway, Sugar Queen," the girl continued, "Meathead sent me to tell you that we're all supposed to head up to the main deck in a couple of minutes." Katara quirked a brow.

"Why? What are we going to do up there? It must be dark out by now." Toph gave her a flat look.

"Oh, poor you, it's dark out," she drawled. Katara grimaced.

"Sorry. I forgot." Toph just rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah…" There was silence for a moment, in which Katara began to clasp her hands nervously. She had the vague sense that something bad was about to happen.

"But really," Katara began again, "Why do we need to go to the deck?"

Toph cleaned her ear out with her pinky. "Not totally sure. I think Chief wanted us to join him up there for some kind of "Campfire Storytime" type thing. You know, tell him about all the crazy stuff we've done?"

Katara tensed up. She still wasn't totally sure that she wanted to even see her dad at the moment, much less be on speaking terms with him. And if they were going to be speaking of everything that had been happening since she and Sokka found Aang… well, there was no _way_ they could skim over Zuko's involvement in that. Heck, he had been the cause of over half the stuff that happened to them!

"I think I'm just going to stay here and finish healing Aang," Katara evaded. "Thanks for inviting me, though." Toph crossed her arms and tilted her head at her, and Katara sighed. Even _she _could hear the insincerity in her voice.

"What, and miss telling your dad about all the stupid things Sokka's done in the last year? Come on Sweetness, I think Twinkletoes won't care if you take a break from hovering at his bedside. Do you?" She asked the boy on the bed.

Predictably, silence was her answer.

"Great! Now come on," she ordered, marching across the room and pulling Katara up from the bed by her wrist, "let's go tell everyone about all the butts we've kicked—starting with Princess Crazy and her flunkies." Toph marched her out the door—boy, was she stronger than she looked!—and Katara dug her heels in.

"Wait, hold on a second!" Quickly, she bent half-around and drew the water out from where she had let it soak into the mattress. Dropping it back in the basin, she had just regained her footing when Toph yanked her out the door.

Brow furrowing in annoyance, Katara jerked her hand out of the girl's grasp and shook it, rubbing her wrist lightly. She wasn't about to let herself be dragged around. "Toph, I mean it, I don't want to go."

"Hey, there you are Katara!" Her brother called from the other end of the hallway. Katara turned around and saw him walking towards her, the fire prince following nervously behind. "I haven't seen you around since…" Her brother paused, and Katara felt a small pang of guilt.

_Since I lashed out at you…_

"…breakfast," he finished a beat late. Her brother's slightly nervous expression quickly turned into an eager one, and he wrapped a hand around her upper arm. "Are you ready? Let's go! I've been waiting all day to tell dad and everyone about Team Avatar's adventures!"

"Do you _really _have to call us that?" Toph grumbled.

Meanwhile, Katara just frowned and crossed her arms. "No, I'm not ready. I'm not going." Sokka's eyes bulged comically.

"_WHAT_? _Why_? !" He screeched. Katara turned her head to the side.

"I just don't want to, that's all," she said simply. "Do I _need _a reason?" Sokka sputtered, trying to form words, when Zuko tentatively raised his hand, as if asking permission to speak.

"Actually," he began, his voice tight, "I think I'd rather pass, too. I'll just go to bed…" He started backing away slowly, when Sokka whirled and pointed at him.

"_Uh-uh_, no way! You _have _to go." Zuko looked like he was about ready to protest when Sokka crossed his arms across his chest, staring him down with an air of superiority. "My dad invited you, _personally_. Do you _really _think it would be a good idea to turn that down?"

Zuko grimaced, his teeth slightly bared. "No, I don't…"

"Then let's go!" Sokka exclaimed.

"…but I also don't think it's a very good idea for me to be there when you guys start to talk about how I wrecked your village, tried to capture you…" he trailed off. Sokka huffed.

"Yeah, well at least if you're there, you can tell us _why _you did all that: you know, burnt Kyoshi Island to a crisp, stole Katara's necklace, sicked some crazy mole-monster on us…"

"Woah, I haven't heard about that last one," Toph piped up. Zuko sighed.

"I get your point, but I still think it would be best if I stayed down here," Zuko firmly suggested.

At that point, though her brother was giving the firebender a sour glare, she could tell that the Prince was about to win this one. And convieniently, right around that same time, she remembered that she was, in fact, still rather mad at the teen for his part in the horrible argument earlier this morning.

With these two facts in mind, a devious plan formed.

"I'll go," she spoke up suddenly, catching everyone's attention.

"Great! Then let's—" She held up a hand, cutting off her brother before he got started.

"I'll go," she repeated, "but on one condition." She paused for effect, then:

"Zuko has to come, too." As soon as she said it, she could see the panic set in to the Prince's face, mixed with an expression that made her think that someone had just kicked his puppy-dillo. It filled her with vindictive glee.

_If _I _can't get out of this one, then neither can _you_._

Sokka just shrugged, instantly accepting her terms. "Fine with me," he said, then turned and pushed Zuko forward. "Sorry, jerkbender, looks like you can't get out of this one." Zuko stumbled forward, then righted himself, glaring at Sokka, who pretended not to notice. They all started to move forward, Toph leading the way up the stairs.

"C'mon, slowpokes! I have the shortest legs and I'm moving the fastest!" Sokka apparently took this as a challenge, and raced ahead to catch up with her. Toph stomped the ground when he got close, and the metal gave an unnatural buck that landed the Water teen on his butt.

Toph cackled and Sokka screeched, and the two ran ahead even further, their squabbling getting more and more distant until finally they were out of sight.

Zuko sidled up to her, and Katara could feel his eyes boring into the side of her head. Part of her was nervous under his angry gaze, but another part felt like smirking in triumph.

After walking in an awkward silence for several minutes, Zuko sighed.

"Is this part of the 'making up for my past actions' deal we worked out?" He muttered. Katara looked at him from the corner of her eyes. He was pouting. She felt herself smile in return.

"I guess this can count… a little bit." Then she frowned, slightly more serious. "It depends on how much my dad wants to kill you after he hears about you chasing us all over the place." Zuko gave her a flat look.

"So the more times I almost get murdered in my sleep, the more you'll forgive me? Gee, thanks…" She laughed.

"Don't worry, I'll protect you," she promised, laying a hand on his arm. He tensed at the touch and she drew her hand away, embarrassed.

They walked in silence for the rest of the way, both lost in their own worries. Katara had no idea exactly what was going to happen, but she did know one thing:

This was going to be a very awkward conversation.

~o0o~

**A/N - ***Hides behind couch* …please don't kill me. Really sorry it took so long to write this, but I have been _crazy _busy. It involves carving watermelons and fuzzy cow suits. Really, you don't want to know…

Anyway, some character interaction in this chapter. I have a better idea of what I want to write next chapter, so it *shouldn't* take too long…

As always, comments, questions, **REVIEWS** are welcome!


	6. Kumbayah Part I

The crisp night air fell over Zuko as he finally emerged from below deck, sending a shiver through his body. His inner flame picked up, somewhat compensating for the chill. Katara was still beside him, and he heard her take a deep, bracing breath, letting it back out as a contented sigh that misted in the air. She smiled to herself, obviously enjoying the cold. Zuko grimaced.

_Figures. If you've lived on a block of ice your whole life, _this _must seem like the middle of summer._

However, her smile evaporated faster than her sigh, her eyes hardening like ice. Zuko looked ahead of them, and saw the huddle of Water Tribe warriors sitting on a collection of empty crates, gathered around a portable furnace. Hakoda was in the very center of the huddle, Bato on his right, and Sokka on his left. Toph was to the left of Sokka, and all the men (and girl) were talking amiably, smiling and grinning and having a good time in general.

Zuko felt like he was on his way to the stake to be burned.

Questioning his sanity for what must have been the twentieth time in two days, Zuko's feet, nonetheless, continued to walk him towards his impending doom without his permission.

_This is a really, really, bad idea._

Zuko just knew that whatever small amount of ground he felt he had gained with the Chief was about to be thrown overboard… possibly right after his gutted carcass.

"Hey, there you are. Glad you could make it." The Chief hailed them as they came into the ring of light cast by the fire. Katara stiffened, her spine going straight and her folded arms wrapping tighter around herself. She said nothing, only plodded over to the seat to the right of Bato and sat herself down stiffly, staring pointedly away from her father. Hakoda said nothing, but his eyes became tight.

Zuko followed her into the center of the ring closely, trying to be as unassuming as possible to slip by the dozens of distant blue stares he could already feel on him. However, being inconspicuous was a bit difficult when he was so much taller and paler than everyone else—he didn't really fit in with this crowd, in more ways than one.

Silently, Zuko settled onto the crate beside Katara, hunching in on himself both to keep out the cold, and to lessen the effect of his naturally regal-rigid posture. The banter around them slowly died, the carefree, easygoing mood that the men had been humming with going up in smoke. The four teens and two adults closest to the fire were now the center of everyone's attention.

There was a moment of tense silence, in which Zuko briefly calculated the chances of this ending well and came up with odds that were worse than that of his father patting him on the back and handing him the throne. Finally, Hakoda spoke.

"As we have seen for ourselves, men," the Chief began formally, addressing his fellow warriors, "this war has touched every inch of our world, its' creeping, greedy fingers clawing into everything good and precious, ripping our homes and families apart." Many in the crowd drew sullen at this, a distant, almost angry look coming into their eyes. Katara, too, he noticed, had a faraway look in her eyes, and her hand absently rubbed at her throat where the pendant of her blue stone necklace lay. For once, Sokka looked completely serious, no trace of his idiot demeanor present. Zuko, too, found himself contemplating all the losses this war had caused him, and the utter destruction he had seen the rest of the world suffer at the hands of his nation. Only Toph appeared to remain unaffected—her blank gaze directed at nothing, her face impassive.

The Chief continued. "Two years ago, we left our friends and family behind, setting out to defend our home with everything we could muster. It has not been easy, and many lives have been lost, but it is a necessary cost if we ever want our children and our grandchildren to live in peace." There was a collective affirmative murmur, the mood too somber for anything else in response to the Chief's inspirational speech.

"And there will be peace," he spoke with conviction, though it was also somehow softer, more personal, like a promise, "for the Avatar has returned to us." More murmurs erupted from the crowd, but they vibrated with a hope and energy that had not been present before. Zuko could hear questions bubbling up from the group of men, but Hakoda made a slow silencing gesture with his hand.

"I would answer your questions, men," he explained somewhat wryly, "but I can't say that I actually know that much about the circumstances of his return, either. Hopefully," he paused, looking pointedly at his son, "my son, Sokka," and in his voice there was pride, "and my daughter, Katara," and in his voice there was pain, "will be able to give you a fuller account, as they have accompanied the Avatar in his travels." No longer murmurs, the men voiced their opinions of disbelief and awe at the news, staring at the water siblings unabashedly. Sokka puffed up his chest, smirking under the limelight, while his sister kept her cold stare burning, mouth set into a thin line.

Like a balloon popping, Sokka exhaled all the air in his body in an excited rush, grasping his hold on the crowds' attention like a child with a new toy.

"Okay everybody, listen up! This is kind of a long story, I know, but trust me, it's a good one. I should know—I'm in it!" Sokka paused, looking at everyone expectantly.

Someone coughed.

Bato put his face into his hands.

Hakoda chuckled.

And then there was silence.

Toph punched the non-bender in the arm, hard. "Just get on with it, Snoozles. Hurry up and get to the good part—you know, the part where _I _come in?" Somehow, it was so much funnier when she said it. Zuko actually felt himself smirk a little.

Or his sudden humor could have come from the muffled yelp of pain that Sokka let out when the twelve-year-old girl slugged him—it was probably a little bit of both.

"Ouch, geez! Alright, alright! I'll start the story," Sokka whined, rubbing his arm. Taking a few seconds to glower ineffectively at the pushy blind girl, Sokka then cleared his throat in a very overly-dramatic fashion, signaling he was about to begin.

Zuko found himself suddenly curious, despite the gnawing fear of the reactions to what _his _part in their story would bring. He knew nothing of how the Avatar—_Aang_—had managed to evade discovery for one hundred years, let alone how he could still be a twelve year old boy. Perhaps he had gotten trapped in the spirit world? He _was _connected to it, after all. But no, then he would still be either dead or extremely old—bodies didn't travel to the spirit world, as far as he was aware…

Then Sokka started talking, and the Prince figured it was a bit pointless trying to guess when he was about to hear the real story, anyway.

"It all started about five months ago, just at the end of summer," the boy intoned, eyes sweeping the gathered crowd. "Katara and I were out in a canoe, fishing—well, _I _was fishing, and Katara was playing with her water—"

"_Hey_!" Katara blurted, the vow of angry silence she had seemed to take discarded in favor of angry yelling, "I caught a fish before you did, but you made me drop it!" Sokka made an affronted noise.

"Only because you dumped a ball of water on my head!"

"I didn't _drop _it, you _backed into _it!" she defended.

"Who cares! I was still wet and cold!"

"Yeah, and too busy griping at me to notice that we were heading into the rapids! We were nearly crushed!"

"Well at least _I _didn't make an _entire iceberg _explode with my temper!"

"Because you were being your stupid, sexist, dunderheaded self!"

Zuko watched the heated exchange between siblings with morbid interest, head bobbling from side to side as he followed the volley of words from one bickering teen to the other, and he wondered if they were going to have to listen to the rest of the story in argument format.

Sokka eventually gave up, rolling his eyes skyward, and throwing his hands up into the air, grumbling. "Whatever. _Anyway_," he continued, giving his sister a look that clearly said _'don't even start_', "where was I? Oh yeah, canoeing, splashing, rapids… boat crushed…then Katara got ticked off and CRACK! Poor, innocent iceberg destroyed."

"Sokka…" Katara growled warningly.

"I'm getting to it," he said huffily, rolling his eyes at her again. "Like I was saying, the iceberg shattered, and the waves nearly threw us off the ice floe we were holding onto. We were both on our stomachs, looking down into the water, when suddenly it starts glowing blue and boiling. I pushed us back from the edge, and just in time, too, 'cause then FWOOM! Another huge iceberg shoots up from out of nowhere, and it's glowing. Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I tried to get a better look at it, but all I saw were a bunch of blobs. But then Katara said that there was a person inside…"

The words spoken around him became meaningless for a moment as Zuko reeled, taking in this bit of information. The boy had been frozen in an iceberg? For one hundred years? How was he not dead? Why had he been frozen in the first place?

By the time Zuko tuned back in to the conversation, the story had progressed somewhat, and he struggled to keep up with what was happening.

"…she takes my club and whacks it a few times, until WHOOSH! This big jet of air comes rushing out of the hole, and the whole thing cracks into pieces. And as it falls apart, this HUGE beam of light shoots up into the sky—and I swear, this thing was like ten feet wide—and it was shining so bright that for a few seconds I couldn't even see…"

Zuko, too, remembered. In some ways, that brief sentinel of power, lighting up the horizon for an earth-shattering instant, then gone so fast he would have missed it if he hadn't been on deck… It was a defining moment for him, the explosive signal that marked the start of the treacherous, winding path that had landed him here, amongst his former enemies. It separated his aimless years, wandering the sea, from the time when he had true purpose, and drive, and sometimes, however fleeting, _hope…_

But, like the tower of light, his hopes and aspirations had vanished, and left his future a murky prospect. Suddenly, sitting in the dark on a hard wooden crate, with only the meager light of the fire to warm him, felt appropriate. Morosely, he tuned back into the story.

"…So I mean, of course I'm a little suspicious at first—I mean, he was a strange glowing bald kid that flew 20 feet in the air when he sneezed—but, we _were _kind of stuck out there, so I decided to go ahead and take him up on the offer."

Katara scoffed. "Yeah, right. If I hadn't talked you out of it, you probably would have tried to _swim_ home before you got on Appa. You were terrified of him!"

Sokka's jaw hung open and he spluttered, an angry—or embarrassed—flush appearing on his cheeks. "I wasn't _scared _of him!" Katara pointed an accusing finger at him.

"You thought he was going to eat you!" Sokka threw his hands up into the air.

"Well _excuse me_ for not wanting to hop on the back of a ten-ton magical monster!"

Somewhere behind them, the monster in question lowed loudly, and Zuko nearly jumped out of his skin. Most of the group turned towards the direction of the rumbling, some tense, others startled, when Sokka let out a sigh.

"No offense buddy—I just didn't know you back then. But you _do _weigh ten tons, and can fly…" Zuko raised an eyebrow as he realized that the water teen was actually addressing the Sky Bison, as if it could hear him.

Appa grumbled and let out a snort, settling back down. Zuko blinked.

Well, maybe it _could_. It certainly hadn't seemed too happy to see him back at Lake Laogai… but it had carried him here without much of a fuss, right? And freeing him from his chains had to count for something, right, even after shooting fireballs at him?

Suddenly uncertain if animals could hold grudges, Zuko subtly shifted closer to the fire, and away from Appa.

Katara, meanwhile, was rolling her eyes at her brother. "Yeah, whatever. You were probably just angry that he got snot all over you." Sokka made a disgusted face, then shuddered.

"Do you have any idea how nasty that stuff is?"

"Says the guy who ate some random goop off of a cave wall," Toph muttered. Sokka turned to the smirking blind girl, mouth open to make a retort, when Katara's sharp voice cut in.

"_Yes,_" she answered scathingly, "_I _was the one who had to _wash your clothes _when we got home, remember?" Sokka suddenly looked panicked, and waved his hands at his sister in surrender.

"Okay, I get it, point taken, sheesh…" Katara huffed and backed down, and Sokka muttered to himself, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Zuko just looked between them, perplexed.

_Okaaaaayy…Wonder what _that _was about_…

Still, he made a mental note: don't talk about laundry. Apparently, it was a touchy subject for her, though why, he could never begin to imagine.

"_Anyway_," Sokka continued loudly, "As I was saying, Appa swam us back to the tribe—he was too tired to fly, apparently—and I guess Aang must have been pretty wiped out from being frozen for one hundred years, too, 'cause he fell asleep as soon as we got back and didn't wake up for twelve hours. Then, the next morning, we introduced him to the tribe, and of course he has to show off and starts flying all over the place—"

"Only because you didn't believe him," Katara muttered. Sokka huffed.

"Yeah, well, I think I had every right to be a little skeptical. I mean, his 'Flying Bison' couldn't fly, so…" He suddenly shook his head. "Anyway, yes. He proved he was an airbender, started wrecking the place—"

"What?" The Chief cut in sharply, eyes narrowing slightly. Katara huffed and rolled her eyes.

"He didn't _wreck _anything, Sokka," she said, though she seemed to be addressing her father, "he _accidentally_ flew into your lookout tower, and that was it. He didn't do anything wrong." Sokka crossed his arms and, for a lack of a better term, pouted.

"He disrupted my class time," he grumbled weakly. Katara let out a sharp bark of laughter, a look of incredulity plastered on her face.

"I cannot _believe _you! They were a bunch of _children_! And Aang's only twelve! He was just letting them have a little harmless fun!"

Twelve? She said it as if it meant something. By the time Zuko was twelve, he had long grown past the point of having fun…

But even as the pessimistic side of him whispered that important people, people with power, didn't have time for childhoods, another part of him, one that had just recently begun to speak up, said that that line of thinking was horribly, viscerally, wrong.

"Harmless, huh?" Sokka continued, oblivious to Zuko's inner confusion, "You think he didn't do anything wrong? Well, then, Katara," he said, grinning triumphantly, "why don't _you_ tell the next part of the story—you know, all the _harmless fun _you and Aang had on your penguin sledding expedition?"

In less than a second flat, Katara's face went from righteous indignation to washed-out panic. Hakoda looked to his daughter in askance, with a hint of suspicion.

"Katara?" She curled in on herself for a moment, grimacing at her father, then shooting her brother a dirty look. Sokka only crossed his arms and grinned wider. Katara's eyes narrowed.

A challenge, then. It didn't take much more than her brother's simple taunting to stir up another brew of that furious self-confidence Zuko had come to associate with the petite girl, and she immediately straightened herself and faced her father. She cleared her throat.

"Here's what happened, okay? Aang had asked me to go penguin sledding with him—several times. Actually, it was the very first thing he said when we woke him up from the iceberg…"

"That _still _kind of confuses me, actually, now that I think about it," Sokka muttered, rubbing his chin and squinting his eyes. Katara went on speaking as if her brother had said nothing.

"Anyway—and this was during summer, by the way, so I knew I didn't have to worry about getting lost in the dark…"

Zuko grimaced slightly. Oh, yes, he definitely knew all about polar 'summers'. One would think that, for a firebender, having the sun never set for months on end would be a dream come true. But getting next to no sleep for weeks on end tended to dampen one's enthusiasm for daylight—it had been like having a constant dose of his Uncle's special ginseng tea flowing through his veins.

"So, we found the flock of penguins, but Aang couldn't catch one—which is weird, really, because he knows how to catch and ride at least ten different animals, as far as I've seen…"

"You know, I'm still kind of surprised that he never tried to ride that serpent thingy…" Sokka scratched his head. "Of course, he _was _kind of depressed at the time…" Katara raised an eyebrow at her brother.

"But Sokka, Aang _did _ride the Unagi, remember? He used it to put out that fire that Z—" Katara bit her tongue before the rest of his name tumbled past her lips, and Zuko tensed.

"—was on Kyoshi," she finished haltingly. It was not a smooth transition, and the firebender's eyes darted from tribesman to tribesman, seeing if anyone had caught her slip-of-the-tongue. Other than a sudden shadow that passed over Sokka's face, no one appeared to have taken notice.

"Right," the water teen said slowly. Then he shook his head. "But I was actually talking about the Sea Serpent… you know, the one that attacked us while we were crossing the Serpent's pass?" Katara gave her brother a flat look.

"I _fought _it—of course I remember." Sokka just shrugged, hands in the air.

"Just checking," he said airily. Beside him, Toph snorted.

"How many giant sea monsters have you guys run _into_, anyway?" Sokka looked down at her.

"Just the two. Well…" he rubbed his chin and looked up, considering. "Three, maybe, if you count that giant koi-fish thing Aang turned into at the North Pole…" Toph's eyes widened, then her face went completely blank. She turned around slowly to (sort-of) stare at Sokka.

"He turned into a fish," she said flatly. Across the fireplace, Katara scoffed.

"It wasn't a _fish_, it was the Spirit of the Ocean." Several men in the crowd gasped, and murmurs started buzzing again.

Oblivious, Sokka shrugged. "And it looked like a fish." Katara scowled.

"You can't just call it _a fish_, though! It's one of the most important spirits to our people!" Sokka waved his hand dismissively.

"Fish, Spirit Fish… Sea Potato, Sea Potahto…" He trailed off, leaving Katara fuming.

Now, Zuko wasn't one to put a great deal of belief in the spirits, but, over time and exposure, a little bit of his Uncle's superstition had rubbed off on him. That, and his natural propensity for bad luck made him think that _something, _out there, must have it out for him.

And to Zuko, it seemed, Sokka was the type of person just _begging _to be struck down by lightning…

…or, washed overboard by a freak tidal wave, as it were.

Katara let out a rough sigh, crossing her arms and leaning back. "Whatever, Sokka," she grumbled, then muttered something to herself that sounded suspiciously like 'choke on a fish bone' and 'salty rash'. She shook her head slightly, then cleared her throat.

"We're getting _way _off track, here. Anyway, where was I? Aang… penguins… catching… oh, yeah! So, he offered to take me to the North Pole if I showed him how to catch one, and—"

"Wait." The words were spilling from the Prince's mouth before he even realized it. "The reason the Avatar traveled half-way around the world… was because you gave him a penguin." Zuko had three seconds of staring flatly at the waterbender before he realized the sudden hush that had fallen around him.

Everyone was staring again. With chagrin, he realized that they had been close to ignoring his presence and leaving him in peace, right up until he had to go and open his disobedient mouth. He could almost feel the prickling of their eyes sweeping over him, assessing him. He took a deep breath and sat a little straighter, never moving his eyes from Katara.

The waterbender, by this time, seemed to have gotten over her momentary shock at hearing him speak, and raised an eyebrow at him, pursing her lips.

"It's a lot more involved than that… but yes, I guess the idea of heading north kind of started then." Zuko stared for several more seconds, then gave a tiny nod and a 'hm', accepting her answer.

Katara stared at him oddly for a few more seconds, then shrugged, turning her attention elsewhere once more. And with her gaze now off of him, most members of the audience followed suit.

"So we rode our penguins down the west slope of the Ice Vole hills." She stopped suddenly, looking anxious, and Zuko realized that the Chief's face had drawn tight and almost angry. She grimaced, then looked down at her nails, continuing in a nonchalant voice. "Aang saw the ship there, and was curious. He convinced me to explore it with him. He accidentally set off a booby trap, so then we took off." She gave a tiny shrug, then slowly, cautiously, raised her eyes to her father. His face looked etched in ice.

"Katara." His voice and face screamed of anger and disappointment, his posture rigid. "Earlier today, you accused me of not trusting your judgment. So tell me, what _on earth _possessed you to make you think it would be alright to go fooling around on that metal deathtrap, when you have known _since you were a child_ that it was absolutely _not_ safe to do so?"

She cringed slightly, and Zuko cringed with her.

Wonderful. Katara's word was about the only thing that Zuko had in defense against the Chief, and it looked like it was about to be reneged. And when _that _was gone, and after the Chief heard the rest of his children's story…

No doubt about it, then. Something out there was _definitely _out to get him.

She chewed on her lower lip anxiously, narrowing her eyes. "It _wasn't _a good idea, I _know _it wasn't, okay? I knew it then, too. It was _one_ bad judgment call. I _am _human; I'm allowed to make a mistake every now and again aren't I? I—"

Everyone jumped slightly when Sokka let out a sudden, half-strangled squeak.

"No way!" His eyes were practically shimmering with excitement and awe as he leaned forward, staring at his sister. There was confused silence for a long moment. Sokka's eyes flashed around the crowd, growing disbelieving as he realized that no one else seemed to be as happy as he was about… whatever it was that he was so happy about. He shook his head slightly.

"Doesn't anybody realize what just happened?" When nobody answered, he shook his head again, staring at them with wide eyes. "Guys, this is like a once in a lifetime event!" Again, only silence.

Eventually, Toph sighed. "Just spit it out already, Meathead." He huffed, looking offended, but complied nonetheless.

"Katara…" he paused for effect, pointing at his sister, who looked somewhat ticked off, "…just admitted she was _wrong_. That _never _happens." Suddenly, his face grew pale. "Oh, no… I guess that means the world really _is_ about to end…"

If looks could kill, Sokka would have been dead three times over. As it was, Katara's furious red face and clawed, white-knuckled fingers gave the impression that she was heavily considering other ways to maim her brother. Meanwhile, Hakoda just stared flatly at his eldest child, unimpressed.

"_I'll _tell you what's about to end, Sokka," Katara growled. "Your life with an unfrozen tongue." Slightly, her fingers twitched, eager to bend.

"Yeah, do us all a favor," Toph cheered.

Zuko blinked. He really couldn't tell if they were kidding or not…

They must have been convincing enough, though, because Sokka immediately snapped his mouth shut with a tiny, high-pitched whimper. Hakoda sighed.

"Alright, kids, I think that's enough with the threats of bodily harm." He kneaded his forehead with his palm, eyes shut firmly. "Let's just get to the rest of the story," he pleaded. But before Katara could start up again, he snapped his gaze to her. "But don't think this means I'll forget about you deliberately going on that ship—I'm still upset about that," Hakoda informed her sternly. Katara grimaced.

Now slightly cowed, Katara lowered her hands and folded them tightly around her middle, as if pinning them down to prevent them from misbehaving. Her face had become less harsh, her tone milder.

"Right. So…yeah. Aang and I fled the ship and ran straight back to the village. Everyone was already gathered at the gate—the trap we tripped set off a flare into the sky… I guess Gran-gran knew where it had come from…" She shook her head slightly. "Sokka, along with most everyone else, thought that Aang had purposely signaled the Fire Navy." She took a big breath, then huffed. "So they told him he had to leave," she finished flatly.

Surprised grunts and gasps escaped from the crowd. Hakoda rocked back slightly, eyes wide, then narrowed them at his son.

"You refused hospitality to the _Avatar_?" Sokka grimaced and held his palms up, placating.

"Well," he half-squeaked, "we didn't actually know he was the Avatar, at the time, so…" Hakoda merely raised an eyebrow and nodded, though he still looked unhappy.

Zuko, meanwhile, was busy reevaluating his opinion of the Water Tribes. Well, not so much reevaluating, as reverting.

_They didn't KNOW he was the Avatar? A 112 year old _airbender_ that caused a _giant beam of light_ to shoot up into the sky? How dense _are _these people?_

_Very. You'll fit right in, _'Azula' cackled.

Outside of Zuko's mind, Toph snorted. "What? The flying around and the giant bison not a big enough clue?"

Sokka raised his hands to the sky. "He said he didn't even _know_ the Avatar, so how was I supposed to know that he _was_?" Toph cocked an eyebrow.

"So, you assumed he was lying about everything else—flying, working for the Fire Nation—but you believed _that_?" Sokka's face screwed up in an odd expression, and he shrugged.

"Didn't seem like the kind of thing that someone would lie about…"

"Unless they were the Avatar, apparently…" Toph finished, blowing on her bangs.

"Well…" Katara started slowly, hesitantly. Everyone turned towards her. "It's not as if there weren't any clues that he was… the Avatar."

_What do you mean? _Zuko wanted to ask, but this time managed to reign in his tongue before he could draw attention to himself again. Katara took the following silence as her signal to continue.

"Obviously, there was that giant beam of light that he let off when we first found him," she frowned, staring into the fire pensively. "But there were other things, too. Like how he seemed to think that no one had seen an airbender in 100 years because they were just good at hiding. Or, like, how he didn't even know about the war… at _all_." She shrugged. "But I guess… even after we figured out that he had been frozen in that iceberg for 100 years, I never even imagined… I mean, when you think of the Avatar… Aang isn't exactly the kind of person who normally comes to mind, you know? And since he had said that he didn't even _know _the guy…" She shrugged again, then looked away from the fire and at her brother. The water teen sat up a little straighter for his turn to speak. He cleared his throat.

"So you can't really blame me for banishing the Avatar—" Out of reflexive habit, Zuko flinched at hearing the words 'banished' and 'Avatar' in the same sentence, "—from our village when I didn't know he was the Avatar." Hakoda sighed, crossing his arms tiredly.

"I suppose you do have a point there, Sokka." Then he suddenly frowned. "But if the Avatar was cast out of the village, how did you end up traveling with him?"

"He came back, right after his highness here parked his ship in the middle of the village," he said casually, waving his hand at ex-royal with an easiness that belied the fact that the water teen might as well have signed Zuko's death warrant.

In the deathly silence that followed, the only sound that reached Zuko's ears was the crackle of the fire and the quickening pace of his heart. Slowly, fifty pairs of blue eyes fixed their gaze of the prince in the middle of the ring, and in the center of them all was the face of the Water Chieftain. It was he who broke the silence.

"…what?"

~o0o~

**A/N - ***winces* I had absolutely no intentions of taking this long to finish this chapter, but, as it often does, real life and lack of inspiration got in the way. But I swear to you, my faithful readers, that so long as I continue to get feedback from my writing, I will continue until the bitter end and finish this thing.

Okay, there's the dramatic speech portion of my note—now for a question: I realize my writing thus far has been very detailed and descriptive, and while some of you have noted this as a plus, others have groused—correctly—that it's slowing down the pace of the story. Personally, I think glossing over important moments of bonding by saying 'and they ended up talking all night about their mothers and by the morning they were bestest buddies' (which I have seen several zutara stories do) is an extremely lazy and unsatisfactory way to write zutara…. Or anything else, really.

So, should I start doing more timeskips—I've done a few, but not many—or keep at my current pace?

Please mail all of you answers to this address: (can be viewed by clicking the 'review this chapter' button below)

(Next chapter is Kum-bay-yah Part II, in Katara's POV)


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